Hugo de Grootplein

COMMISSION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROJECT ‘DORDRECHT, CULTURAL CITY’ 1995

The escape of the historical character Hugo de Groot from the Castle of Loevestein (Gorinchem, The Netherlands) in a book chest inspired me to create this object – when the chest is gone, the books remain. It consists of a stack of ceramic ‘books’ with titles of the writings of Hugo de Groot and Spinoza, placed on a base made of asphalt and shaped after the floor plan of the Loevestein castle.

CHURCH SQUARE

No, not the house broadening itself
with petrified garlands over
the windows, pomegranates
never beyond half
way exploded.

Even less the stony nave of the church,
ark that accommodated thousands of dead,
ten with a tomb
and the cumbersome echo
of old belief.

But the almost invisible little house
in the lush recess behind a
blooming tangle, and who
lives there and makes books
of eloquent stone.

Jan Eijkelboom