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Jan De Cooman has painted a twentysome Flemish farm interiors. Our typical Flemish farm interiors! A magical mystery hides in those broad, duskily rooms. Everything is peaceful, hazy and quiet in there. A mysterious quietness rustles around all simple things of life. The hearty light flows through the shining windowpanes and projects cheerful, glittering spots on the blue tiles. A variety of infinitely delicate shades, that quiver on the beams of the ceiling, that glitter on the border of the tin plates above the chimneybreast, in the pale colour of rush-bottemed chairs, in the glimmer of the copper stove poker. The whole atmosphere trembles out of clear tranquillity. The human beings are assimilated in it, in total harmony with the deep calmness that devours everything, and they carry the intimate harmony in their being and in their pensive occupation. There farm- kitchens have their own athmosphere, their light, their peculiar colour and smell, they are full of poetry.
How visually attractive the artist has painted this intimacy, this limpid closeness.
The interiors of Jan De Cooman are split over two periods: a tensome were painted between 1914 and 1921 and the other then are dated between 1930 and 1935. The difference in expression, in sensation and sentiment is striking and somehow disappointing. In the first ten, the depicting element dominates: their beauty and sentiment is defined by the harmonic tints. During the second period all attention is turned to the graphical accuracy of the composition, to the lifelike representation: the impulsive magic of colours makes room for the consideration to justify the object in the slightest detail.
Most of the interiors from the first period are spread abroad. Two paintings of this period treat the same subject: a farm-kitchen, seen from an open door, with an unlit framework on the foreground, indefinitely interwoven with the atmosphere, and in the centre a view on the interior of the house, blossoming in the daylight.
These are festively painted tableaux! The dull glow of the deep gray and blue tints in the dark frame express a special charm. The open door, dark brown, is massive against the subdued symphonie in the back. A wonderful harmony springs from this unanimity, delicate and fragile, like a soft shade against the light, that glows warm in the inner-room.
The interior, seen through the open door, is treated differently in both paintings. In one, the light sparsely leaks in through a windowcorner, covers the objects with a mysterious veil of vagueness and then flows melodiously into the general gamut of matt tints. In the other painting, the white and warm light penetrates into the room and spins the golden gleam of a brocade dress around the objects.
In both of these paintings a real painter is working, one that creates a magic world, passed sheer observation, in which the light reigns in its pure and total power. The state of mind of this artist, who experiences the world and his yought as a delight, cristallizes in this fragile splendor. The light, subdued or blazing, expresses the overjoyed soul of the artist, who sings the culmination of his life in youthful ecstasy.
In these works of art it becomes clear that Jan De Cooman, in the earliest years of consciousness-raising, is showing himself before all as a painter and not as a graphical artist. He developped a depicting vision, as we seldom come across in a young guy of only twenty years old.
Colour and tone have something awesome, something monumental ,
Kleur en toon hebben iets ontzaglijk, iets monumentaal, en zijn beeldende kracht doet nergens opzettelijk aan en is nog niets aangetast door die conventionele manier van uitdrukking uit latere tijd.
Wat een belofte hielden die schilderijen niet in, als wij zien hoe dit gedaan is, zonder berekening, spontaan uit de vingers gevloeid, zonder details... alleen lichtzinderingen, harmonische tintelingen, uiterst gevoelig en met die klassieke helderheid welke wij bij Jan De Cooman zo lief hebben!
In zijn tweede serie laat Jan De Cooman ons zijn boerenkeukens zien als een folkloristisch curiosum met een vriendelijke wenk: "Zie maar eens hoe het er hier bij die brave mensen uitziet!". Inderdaad, die oude dingen kunnen wij met geboeide belangstelling bekijken. Het treft ons hoe het bruin tarwebrood daar lekker ligt te geuren en hoe vriendelijk de oude patelen en potten blinken en hoe regelmatig die koperen slinger in de oude horlogekast de tijd afkapt.
In zijn interieurs
openbaart Jan De Cooman zich als een scherp ontledend
technicus en tegelijk als een gevoelig artiest en een
delicaat mens, een kunstenaar, die de intuïtieve kracht
in zijn wezen in een bezielde inhoud weet vast te leggen en
uit zichzelf de macht van de dramatiek haalt om de
beschouwer blijvend te ontroeren.
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1931 (St-Lievens-Esse)
