De tuin van de verliefde kater
1959-1960
Painting, 100 x 120 cm.
Materials: oil, canvas
Collection: Private Collection, Antwerp.
When, in 1956, Maurice Wyckaert meets Asger Jorn – they would remain becoming lifelong friends – his painterly activity takes on a totally new direction. He not only begins to paint differently, he also adopts a nomadic lifestyle, with many trips and always other ateliers. His work is more often seen in Germany and Italy than here at home. And it carries clear traces of his new life as well. How and why he makes art is part of a freedom that extends much further afield than the atelier. The furrowed paint layers with their explosive, unmixed colours take up the baton where the lyrical landscape of the romantic had left off. Wyckaert’s landscapes are no symbols, no mirrors of the soul. Piece by piece they show how he sets his hand to a worn out genre, shifting it from the private sphere to the wasteland of society. Freedom can be won. It is not for nothing that Wyckaert remains an active member of the International Situationist up to 1961.
