Jan Cox
(c)image: M HKA
As a humanist, Jan Cox was committed to a dualistic worldview. The notion of the dichotomy - man/woman, matter/intelligence, steadfastness/inconstancy - and the impenetrable reality that sits alongside dream and hope, receives its visual manifestation in works such as Untitled or Marmer en pluim (Marble and Feather).
Only too aware of his own weaknesses, in 1952 Cox writes the following about his wife: "... there is Yvonne, a positive and joyous soul who is unconcerned with having the approval of others. She does what she wants to do. She has mettle; I appear timorous. It astonishes me to see how she can be so unreasonably certain about some values. Sometimes this irks me, but that's what I love about her...".
In later works, as well, Cox seeks to create a visual translation of 'the contrast', and in the series The Calvary and more particularly in The Descent from the Cross - with a nod to Giotto - he endeavors to reconcile the spiritual with the physical and the worldly. The palette is reduced; it's all in the power and the energy. Impasto, with interiority made manifest on canvas.
