Vlissingen: Boulevard with bathing beach
View of Nollehoofd, the Boulevards Evertsen and Bankert
Painting height: 2.50 meter
Painting length: 40 meter
Period of time: June – December 2011
Painting time: about 1,050 man hours
WHERE IS THIS?
Boulevard Evertsen was developed in the low dune landscape where the Mayor of Vlissingen Arie Smit, also director of the dockyard De Schelde established by him in 1875, started the development of the seaside resort of Vlissingen. The imposing Hôtel Des Bains, in the style of the Schevening Kurhaus, was built there in 1885. The new railroad brought passengers from the whole of Europe to Vlissingen for the crossing to England with the Zeeland Steamboat company and yielded many hotel guests. In the middle of the crisis period Mayor Van Woelderen ordered the building of the monumental Villa the Wooldhuis that marked the end of the development.
THE RESULT
Painter and artistic leader Jo Dumon Tak chose to show the reflection of the skyline of the present Boulevards. He was extremely satisfied with the photos that were made and chose to simply copy them. The top half was relatively easy, the bottom half was trickier. In this painting the two extremes of the painting tradition come together. The flats form the figurative, the reflection the abstract part: a horizontal reflection.
It is striking that both the original Hôtel des Bains, destroyed during the liberation in 1944, as well as the post-war Hotel Britannia that was taken down for new construction that hasn’t yet been realized, leave an empty spot behind. The Nollehoofd also looks different now