This graphite pencil drawing ‘Ascension – 24-05-17’ is a special one. Last one was ‘The mythical appearance of Alexis de Roode at Voorburg – 15-05-17 (Sold)’. That one was in honor of a friend and a great poet I met a week ago in Utrecht. There I was, walking towards ‘t Wed where we were to meet. Suddendly the contours of the Dom came popping up. Churches can be almost invisible in medieval streets in a city centre here in The Netherlands. Then all of a sudden it there is this gigantic structure on the retina. As if it where a rocket of some kind. Maybe one straight out of the Apollo project from the 1960s and 1970s. After all, don’t religious people reach for the skies just like astronauts?
One thought led to another. Possibly induced by Lennon’s line in ‘Imagine’ “… no religion too.”. Why would the world need churches anymore. Another song that came to mind was Jon Anderson’s ‘Surrender’. He suggested to send all weapons up into the sky and let them explode above the atmosphere. Not a bad idea. So why wouldn’t you consider churches and especially their towers as rockets that became redundant? Initially I had a another title in mind: ‘God is loose’ but ‘Ascension’ describes it better. Nevertheless the knights templar represents the fact that God has forsaken his most zealous servants. As if to say their combined endeavours called the crusades were totally in vain. Perhaps just like sitting in churches will do little good for human kind. Didn’t Meister Eckhart say: “God is not to be found in a church”?
Graphite pencil drawing (Pentel 0.5 mm, 3B) on Canson Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm) – A4 format)
Artist: Corné Akkers
Sales info: info@corneakkers.com
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