De Ooijpolder (2013)

Website link: https://corneakkers.com/the-ooij-polder-2013/

On the Moraine

This oil painting ‘The Ooij Polder (2013)’ depicts a scenery I knew for all my life or does it? You see, the polder landscape is flat, river area so to speak. Lots of ponds, hedges and meadows, cattle and of course dikes. A view from above is hard to get but there are hills in and just outside Nijmegen. I didn’t ever visit the actual spot until one time I happen to be there with my parents. The place is near the Estel Residence looking over the polder. I took a picture and forgot about it, only to rediscover it much later. This painting is the result.

Near the German Border

The Ooij Polder is an area between the German border and Nijmegen, the place where I grew up. There is this village ‘De Ooij’ where my mother was born. I was intrigued by the zig-zag pattern of dikes dividing the space from above. The atmosperic perspective turning trees totally blue in the background also caught my attention. You don’t take notice of these forshortened zig-zags when you ride your bike through the polder. They were most prominent viewed from above though. To me it seemed fun trying to catch these abstracted patterns in oil on wood panel.

Pointillism

The initial plan was not a pointillistic approach in the first place. However, soon I found out there simply wasn’t enough atmospheric depth. I found things became bit too sharply delineated. Hence, pointillism which I didn’t employ as technique before. An excellent opportunity to try it out, wouldn’t you say? That proved to be a tall order though. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. It all boiled down to place point after point, redoing many several times. Another aspect was to honor the principle of divisionism. For example, dots of purple and yellow, red and green should deliver the correct grayish effect at a distance. It was a Gordian knot but eventually I got the pointillist effect right. Not really into using it once more, even though many of my pastels show these divisionist approach. Nude - 21-12-16 (sold) is such an example.

Oil paint on wood panel (54.5 x 67 x 0.9 cm)
Artist: Corné Akkers