Room of Taste

[narrator]: This dubbing has been created with AI. Painter Matthijs Röling has dedicated his entire life to realistic art. Now that he has passed the age of 80, he reflects on his working life, which ended abruptly due to a disease in his hands.

You will hear the artist himself from his home in the Groningen village of Ezinge.

[Matthijs Röling]: I've always enjoyed drawing. Yeah, drawing is really the foundation of your work. I always had a sketchbook at hand. It all started with Jan van Eyck. I mean, my parents had a thick book of his in the bookcase, and I couldn't get enough of it. I found it incredible and still do. I was also very impressed by a painting of Dick Ket, a beautiful painting that my father acquired shortly after Dick Ket's death, I believe. Yes, yes, it was on display in our house. And suddenly I found it very beautiful.

I have also been very impressed by French impressionists. Which French ones? Monet and also Sierach, whom I became enormously interested in later on. I think he's absolutely fantastic up to and including Bonnard and Vuillard. Just stunning.

My work is considered old-fashioned. And, well, so be it.

I never really had to be in existential need, because from my first exhibitions on out, I always thought quite well that that went all right. Well, I loved it. Fantastic. I went on nice trips. I worked in Greece, Italy, Morocco, or Spain. Just to visit a beautiful place and draw what you see. No, not a Calvinist. No, no.

I remember well, sitting in the garden, painting, and I stopped and I thought, my hand hurts a bit. I thought I need to take a few days off. But then it didn't go away. I gradually had to get used to it, but I thought maybe it would come back. But it didn't come back. Even worse, my hand just refused. I couldn't get it back. At some point, you accept that it's over.

Occasionally, I see something in the garden again, and I think, oh, that could have been a nice painting. I haven't been able to paint my little dog anymore. The previous one, I could, but not this small one anymore. Yeah, that's a shame.

I think Dutch history will look back with pride on our generation. I've been very lucky that I haven't been hindered in what I enjoyed most and was best at, incredibly lucky.
 

[narrator]: This dubbing has been created with AI. When Cees Röling is forced to leave his successful fashion company due to illness, he starts collecting art. Especially from his distant cousin Matthijs Röling, but also from other figurative artists. Cees Röling turns out to be an avid collector, and his collection grows rapidly.

He even has a new house built solely for his collection, in the small town of Kudelstaart. In 2021, Cees passes away. What kind of man was Cees, and what did art mean to him? Listen to the memories of artist Sam Drukker, Mario ter Braak, and Piet Sebens. We speak with the three artists at the Drents Museum.

[Piet Sebens]: He was undeniably an avid purchaser.

[Sam Drukker]: He was also very old-fashioned. He didn't have a mobile phone or a computer, so he still did everything with catalogues and photos. That made it quite challenging for him, as nowadays you can conduct trade very easily. But he didn't have any of those tools.

[Mario ter Braak]: There's a sort of discrepancy with Kees Roeling regarding the artistic aspect of art and the commercial side.

[Sam Drukker]: I've also seen him say, come take a look, I have acquired a young muckus, and indeed it was something extraordinary. I remember thinking, wow, if I had that much money, I would have done the same. At the same time, he also knew how to drive a hard bargain, because in all the negotiations I had with him, I always felt a bit cheated.

[Piet Sebens]: He was a ruthless bargainer.

[Sam Drukker]: I don't think that Kees had a problem with dropping you either. He was very tough. He came from the textile industry, where he made his fortune. I believe that's how it was there. And he simply carried that over to the art world, where you could conduct trade in a similar way. Because as an artist, you're already vulnerable. I mean, I've never thought, can I double the price now? That doesn't occur to you. But at the same time, he did cut the price in half.

[Piet Sebens]: That was a very strange contradiction. On the one hand, you were genuinely welcome with open arms. You were served canopies with salmon and eel, delicious, or a glass of wine if you wanted. But you always came to that moment of how a price has to be agreed upon. And then you would always start to sweat a little.

[Mario ter Braak]: And that's what's typical with Kees. Because you see that dependency always exists by definition between the creator and the people purchasing it.

[Sam Drukker]: He could also be very sweet and kind. Like you mentioned before, you were really welcomed with open arms. But he would also take you to an eel smokehouse and give you a package of smoked eel. Those were the sort of things he did too. And I'm aware that these things are quite common in the realms of the extremely wealthy. He also bought from his cousin Matthijs. He would go there with a crate of wine. And he always came back with a newly acquired piece. And I have no clue what he paid for it.

[Mario ter Braak]: Kees spun all sorts of intriguing tales and told a lot of different stories. But one time I saw him sitting in a chair with a painting propped against another chair, intensely scrutinizing the work. So all that decorum was gone. And then you saw him really, really lose himself in the purity of just a painting. And then you could see the pure enthusiast that I always perceived him to be.

[Piet Sebens]: For example, he also owned work by Caroline Smith, who is someone who makes ceramic sculptures. Very, very baroque. On the mezzanine in that house, there are easily 20 sculptures of her, which are extremely expensive.

[Sam Drukker]: He always kept the door open, the front door.

[Mario ter Braak]: Yeah, yeah, I've seen that too. Even his garden gate was left open.

[Sam Drukker]: Incredible. I find that quite amusing as well.

[Piet Sebens]: He was a hunter. I think that's a befitting word.

[Sam Drukker]: Indeed. And you could also say that a vast majority of his work was quite exceptional.
 

This is a tactile object. You may touch it.

The object in front of you is a 3D replica of a self-portrait by Matthijs Röling. It's meant to be touched, so please go ahead! In this portrait, Röling depicted the upper side of his body, seen diagonally from behind. We see a white man with blue-grey eyes, looking at the viewer with a neutral gaze, his chin resting on his bare shoulder. Röling’s appearance in this self-portrait is quite striking. There's hardly any hair on his temples, and the straight hair on the top of his head is combed forward into a tapering lock on his forehead. Don’t forget to feel the somewhat coarse structure of the eyebrows as well. 

Note Röling’s prominent nose, painted in line with the hair on his forehead. Also, his lips protrude slightly. Around his mouth and on his jawline there's the stubble of an unshaven beard. In the background around his head, wild peaks of hair can be felt sticking out in all directions. Because there is no hair on his temple, his ear is clearly visible. Röling's somewhat wild appearance here, is probably a reference to his wild life, in which alcohol and sometimes drugs played a role.  

The original oil-on-panel painting, hanging on the wall behind you, is approximately 15 by 17 centimetres. It’s painted in mainly brown tones, a bit of grey-blue on the chin and shades of pink and red in the lips, ear and skin. In the background a lot of so-called craquelé can be felt: tiny cracks, which form a fine network of dark brown lines. On the 3D replica the craquelé can clearly be felt, mainly in the background, but there is also some on Röling’s protruding shoulder. Craquelé is a common phenomenon in old paintings because over time the paint dries out and cracks. Here, however, it’s very likely that Röling applied the effect deliberately, as it occurs almost exclusively in the background and hardly in the figure depicted. 

 

This is a scent point. Here you can smell a scent.

This here, is Matthijs Röling’s painting box. It's open, and it contains tubes of paint in various colours, brushes and palette knives. It's not exactly known how old the box is, but judging from the many paint strokes and smudges, scratches and dents on it, it's clear that Röling used it extensively. Note his initials M.R., in black, on the inside of the lid. 

Oil paint consists of pigments and oil. Because the oil dries transparently, the artist can paint multiple layers on top of each other, thereby creating beautiful, subtle colours. The oil, usually linseed oil, serves as a binding agent. You can smell its scent here!

 

This is a core object. You can listen to information here. Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to touch this object.

Hanging side by side, these two paintings form a so-called diptych of 83 centimetres high by 68 centimetres wide. It was made by Matthijs Röling. He painted it with oil paint on wooden panels. The title is ‘The painter and his model’. It represents a painter drawing his nude model. The work is painted true to life, with great attention to detail and a focus on the incoming light.

Röling painted the corner of a room stretched out over two panels. The room is on the first floor of Huis Groenestein, a large villa in the province of Groningen, boasting an enormous garden. The painter lived there for a long time, together with his parents. The diptych shows a room with a high ceiling, with on the left a window reaching up to the ceiling in a deep, light green cove. One of the windowpanes is open, turning inwards. The walls on the left and back are painted in two different shades of beige due to the lighting and wainscoted with beige-yellow wooden panels. The floor consists of light green wooden planks. 

On the left panel we see a white man, Röling himself. He is sitting in the windowsill with a sheet of drawing paper on his lap, bare-chested and wearing light blue jeans. His bare feet rest on the floor. He is leaning forward, holding the paper on his lap with his left hand and drawing with his right. In the foreground, standing against the wall to the left of the window, there is a wooden straight matted chair with a rush seat. On it, there are some loose green branches with leaves. The sunlight shining into the room through the window casts light on the floor and the wall in the right panel. 

On the right panel there is a white nude model. It’s the painter's wife, Karin. She’s standing close to the back wall. Her slightly wavy dark blond hair reaches to her shoulders, with a fringe covering the upper part of her forehead. Her head is slightly tilted downwards. She poses with her arms bent backwards, her hands resting on her buttocks and her small breasts clearly visible. Her legs stand slightly apart, with her right leg forward, as if she's just taken a step towards the painter. She’s standing in the shadow, only her right leg catches the sunlight falling in through the open window. In the foreground there are two white vases with a few pink and blue flowers in them. In between the vases there is a white, tall, enamel straight jug with a handle and a blue rim.