Dutch artist captures unique beauty of harbors

Dutch artist captures unique beauty of harbors

By Jane Freebury

JAKARTA (JP): As a boy, Dutch maritime artist Peter J.
Sterkenburg enjoyed watching ships pass through the old port of
Harlingen where he lived in northern Holland. His enjoyment
manifested itself in a talent for drawing ships. This
preoccupation has become a life's work and brought about
exhibitions such as Sterkenburg's latest to Asia-Pacific,
Harbours of Asia and Australia, Now and in the Past. It is open
to the public at Erasmus Huis in Jl. H.R. Rasuna Said, Kuningan,
South Jakarta until July 2.

Shipping of every class is represented on Sterkenburg's
canvasses, some in port and some at sea. There are views of
tea clippers, sampans, junks, windjammers, sloops, hovercraft,
yachts, tugs, container ships and fishing boats in this maritime
equivalent to train spotting. From tall ships of easy grace to
chugging fishing vessels that hug shorelines, Sterkenburg paints
them all.

Sterkenburg's exhibition is an eclectic collection, with, say,
a fishing boat from Aberdeen, a hydrofoil from Macao Ferry
Services and a Chinese junk captured together within a single
frame.

Sometimes Sterkenburg offers a simple celebratory statement
such as the "tea race" with clipper "Cutty Sark" in the lead on
its way with a cargo of fresh new tea leaves, on their way to the
tea cups of Europe via the markets of Canton, China. An image of
stately tea clippers that could hail from colonial days.

Other times, Sterkenburg offers a different world view. In
Penang Bridge, 1995 there is a squat-hulled and rusty coastal
vessel the "Hock Huat" in the foreground, reflecting a rusty
stain on the waters below to emphasize the point. Typical local
fishing boats are mid-ground, while the delicate lines of Penang
Bridge are only discernible deep in the background. A totally
different statement than the proud lines of the "Cutty Sark".

Sterkenburg's naturalistic aesthetic style is classical in its
attention to mimesis. These paintings are reproductions to rival
the photograph, with barely a smidgen of careless impressionism
in sight -- except perhaps a ghostly Hong Kong city backdrop to
Hong Kong Harbour with Kai Tak Runway, 1995.

The twenty paintings exhibited range from researched
reconstructions such as Penang, Georgetown 1850, with an old fort
in the background, that recreate a harbour scene long gone, to
the immediacy of paintings completed just last year, like Chinese
Junks, Pearl River Delta, Sunset, 1995 or Penang Bridge 1995, and
Hong Kong Harbour with Kai Tak Runway, 1995. All these starkly
descriptive titles have the ring of anatomical detail and so it
is with the paintings. Prudent and no nonsense captions for the
honest realistic representations they describe.

Pilot Boat 'Captain Cook II', North and South Head, Sydney
1925, is a dynamic painting that prompts an image of Sterkenburg
aboard a Manly ferry, passing the Sydney Harbor mouth. The artist
probably had to narrow his eyes just a little to imagine the old
pilot boat Captain Cook II churning through heaving seas to meet
the Captain Erikson windjammer and guide it into port. For those
who know Sydney Harbour, the Macquarie Lighthouse can be
discerned, a tiny white finger with a little cluster of housing
around it. The painting has a sense of urgency -- the need to
make a connection -- that draws the viewer. A narrative suggests
itself.

Sky

Sterkenburg known for his ships, but his treatment of sky and
sea is a critical element. Without the artist's ability to render
the sea and sky dynamically there would be no more than the fixed
and painted ship upon the painted ocean.

Although Sterkenburg is good with light, in the sky and on the
waves of an ordinary day, he is heavy on sunsets. There are a
large number of romantically streaked skies in exhibition.

In Chinese Junks, Pearl River Delta, Sunset, 1995 a setting
sun is about to drop out of the sky. There is sunlight on cloud
and water -- tinges of pink, mushroom gray and mauve -- coded
romantically to invoke a bygone era. Ditto Hong Kong, Sunset,
1860 which details American and British merchant ships amongst
junks and sampans set against a city of the past.

According to the exhibition catalog, Sterkenburg joined the
army as a young man. His talent was discovered and he was
commissioned to paint both military and maritime subjects. While
ships under sail seem to be Sterkenburg's favorite subjects, he
has also painted oil-drilling platforms in the North Sea, naval
vessels, container ships and even fighter jets. His first
collective exhibition was held in 1980 in Breukelen, Holland.

Sterkenburg's first Asian exhibition was successfully staged
in 1992 in Hong Kong. It is easy to see why, with paintings like
Hong Kong, 1860, Victoria Harbour brought to life with
photographic veracity.

A painting, even a view of actual contemporary scenes, can be
worth a thousand photographs. Comparing one of the artist's least
successful exhibited paintings with one of his more successful,
Sydney Harbour with Singapore Harbour, the contrast between them
makes the point. There is a flattened-out perspective in
Singapore Skyline, 1995, and a single line of movement, left to
right, a standard two-thirds down the frame.

The naturalistic Sydney Harbour, 1995 has a very different
quality. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are merely
icons in the distance, background wallpaper to the choppy seas
and the blustery winds in the sails moving at a fast clip in the
foreground. The viewer could be in the prow of a boat just about
to move into the picture. It is a painting with a perspective
that suggests that the artist, and this viewer, is in dynamic
relation to the subject. It is among the exhibits that represent
this maritime painter at his best.