Artwork Data

Title

Zon

Artist

Aart van den IJssel

Year

1961

Material

Brons

Dimensions

h. 75 cm

Artwork Location

Address

Gradaland 3-5, Den Haag

City district

Haagse Hout

GPS data

52.097174576008, 4.3634483136002 View on map

Artwork Description

Text

A flaming sun in bronze adorns the wall of the Kennedy School. The powerful, agile rays spread out from two circles placed inside each other. In the Zuiderpark, there is an equally brilliant sun, worked out in detail. Originally, this statue stood near a school. Apparently, Voorburg artist Aart van den IJssel found the sun to be a fitting theme for the élan of the youth. Radiant, cheerful and exuberant.

Trained as a classical stone sculptor, in the 1950s Van den IJssel found it increasingly difficult to express his ideas in that material. Cutting, sawing, welding and soldering metal wires and sheets suited him much better. At the time, this was a fairly new way of working. Incidentally, Van den IJssel also received many commissions as a ceramist. After the war, there was a great need for decoration of new buildings. Van den IJssel made ceramic reliefs and sculptures for buildings throughout the country, including many schools.

His work includes birds, horses, insects, crosses, riders, suns, machines on wheels - varying from bronze, iron, brass to gold leaf. Van den IJssel depicted countless subjects in metal, but nature, which fascinated him immensely, was central. Briefly typified, his work is figurative, imaginative and expressive. The term 'surrealist' is also associated with the work. This is undoubtedly related to Van den IJssel's style. Constructed from sheets of metal, people and animals appear to be, or actually are, armoured. They look fearsome, even unreal, just like his greatly enlarged grasshoppers and dragonflies. Vulnerably Armoured' is the poetic title of a publication on the work of Van den IJssel, written by art historian Saskia Gras. The armour contains aggression, but it also serves to protect the vulnerable.

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