The cat stealthily walks down the front doorsteps. She has left the meagre warmth of an old wood-burning stove and is peeking at what is going on around the corner. It seems quite cosy in Tom Frantzen’s ‘The Painter’s Studio’, from where she emerges. On the soft green painted walls, bronze paintings of dancing cows hang above a portrait of a rather vain stork. An owl on the wall seems happily perched in its surroundings.
The primitive stove does its best. Apparently, the little devil can burn anything that is even slightly flammable. And there he sits. The monkey on a stool in front of his easel, his tail curled up in pure concentration.
Holding a raised brush, he cheekily looks you straight in the eye. The outlines of your head and neck are already on the canvas. A few bottles have provided the bravado and inspiration. The scene appears to freeze a moment of promise, the creation of a new work of art.
Tom Frantzen's group of sculptures is a still life bursting with activity. A game of watching and being watched. You would have to be an owl not to see that. As a passer-by, you look up in surprise as the monkey stares straight at you. Who is actually staring at whom? As a passer-by, as an onlooker, you suddenly become an intimate part of the interaction in this composition.
From the Middle Ages onwards, the monkey became a symbol of painting and sculpture. After all, imitation was the essence of the artists’ craft, and art aspired to ‘ape’ nature. Ars Simia Naturae. To convey reality in lifelike detail on canvas or in a sculpture was the dream of every artist. This is evidenced by the anecdote of the false real fly that Quinten Metsijs painted on canvas. Or… the mischievous parody depicting a monkey painting a portrait. Usually of a woman. The ideas of centuries of old have not escaped Tom Frantzen. His monkey paints the casual passer-by. Without distinction, everyone is temporarily 'immortalised' or made a monkey out of for a brief moment.
The image is an apparent contradiction to what follows. A parody too, because 'Het Schildersatelier' is also a reference to the 19th century School of Tervuren, with artists who left the studio to paint as realistically as possible. In nature and according to nature with nature as their only teacher. Ars sola Magister. Far from rules and conventions and imposed themes. The 19th-century frames on the wall containing green landscapes with cows and the occasional portrait do not lie. This is a clear nod with an additional layer to a unique house where art has always been assigned an important role.
The former residence of the notary Duvigneaud may just have embarked on a new life after a modern makeover, but it has maintained its position and its grandeur. Notary Duvigneaud was an art lover and connoisseur, and a generous man. The basic collection of the Friends of the School of Tervuren on display in the Hof van Melijn municipal museum is partly made possible by the patronage of Edouard Duvigneaud. He housed the very first museum for the School of Tervuren in his own home. In those days, it was called 'The Chessboard'.
The current residents share an equal love of art and reshaped that idea when the building was redesigned to create the 'open window' to art in the former entrance to the house.
For Tom Frantzen this was interesting information to work with for this assignment because he always creates his public images as a function of the site or the building for which they are intended. So, the seemingly comical and innocent scene gives us a lot to look at and also to reflect on. There is an owl if you hadn't seen it. Whatever message he brings, satire is never far away and the contents are packaged with the necessary relativism.
Tom began his education in the drawing and painting department at Bosvoorde. He was told by director and teacher Roger Somville that he drew and painted like a sculptor, so he exchanged canvas for plaster and bronze and followed the monumental sculpture training at Terkameren.
Although his images now have something painterly about them, spatiality prevails. And the open-mindedness with which they approach life and conjure up an imaginary world is always striking.
We have certainly seen that!
Annemie Breugelmans
20 September 2015