User:Shushanik-moutafian

Shushanik-Moutafian

Object from the Boijman

Gertrud Vasegaard,Ronne 1913 - 2007

Kom, 1974

Steengoed, glazuur

Research: Gertrud Vasegaard

Gertrud Vasegaard is the great Danish ceramist of the 20th Century. In Denmark she was recognised again and again and awarded many prizes. Privately she lived a very quiet life - like a Zen-Buddhist - from 1969 alone, together with her daughter the ceramist Myre Vasegaard (1936-2006). Her art, however, was just as generous and subtle as her daily life was austere and modest. Her ceramic work – an art pure and strong – equals a level as high as that of Lucie Rie and Hans Coper.

Bowls, vessels and other traditional forms created by Gertrud Vasegaard in stoneware, with such personal integrity and magnetism, make the surrounding rooms vibrate with their own emptiness. Her works just stand there – mild and majestic – with great serenity. But a unique work of Gertrud Vasegaard only reveals its subtle depths slowly. There is a greatness and nobility embedded in the simple, sophisticated, and textural. Form, decoration, body and glaze always unite, giving each piece a silent, warm mental plenitude. No loudness is to be registered, only dynamic rest – like "a Chinese jar still moves perpetually in its stillness" (T.S. Eliot). Each piece stands tangible, down-to-earth, the stoneware mass can be felt in such a way that the textural effect of the material comes into its own.Decorations might look as simple ornaments, engraved, painted, or pressed in contrasting colours, but in fact they are part of her artistic way of celebrating our existence. She was no ceramic rebel; but a master of the craft and an artist who was also a poet. Art is the craft of the mind. The art of Gertrud Vasegaard is obviously connected to the abstract movements of the visual art of the 20th Century, but it is also of a timeless character.