On the frontiers of civilisation
Dominic van den Boogerd
Travel and painting converge in the representation of the landscape, the main theme in Hans Broek's oeuvre, with the painter drawing inspiration from photos he takes during his worldwide peregrinations, often in locations where history has left its mark. His landscapes are a form of history painting, but not the kind that idealises significant historic events. Instead, Broek's pictures help us imagine and even experience these events. "Geography is the eye of history", the cartographer Abraham Ortelius wrote. Broek paints décors devoid of people, but ones in which the lives that once unfolded here are palpable.
In addition to being a reflection of a world elsewhere, landscapes also reflect our gaze. They can be paradisiacal or barren, make us feel homesick or patriotic, and even inspire sorrow or shame. Like travellers who go to find themselves in distant countries, the painter discovers his shortcomings and own capacities in his studio. Broek works in a former radio studio near Hilversum, where he has mounted some 600 reproductions of his paintings on the wall, in rows, in a chronological overview of the evolution of his work, which is remarkably consistent.