Museum in Angra at Terceira acquires Tourada a corda painting

The painting was exhibited in Velas at São Jorge last summer were it cought the attention of some spectators that recommended the painting to the management of the museum.

Pieter himself gives the following background information: "When I arrived at the islands, now almost 10 years ago, one of my first thoughts was "I want to paint here". The landscape, specifically the seashore, has a certain kind of graphic quality that is completely different from what I have experienced elsewhere (either in Holland, or for instance in Japan, where I also did a lot of sketching). Then there is the light, that has a certain cold clarity that is quite peculiar, probably because the air is relatively cold and needs to travel over the ocean such a long time. In the beginning I did a lot of landscapes, mostly 'en plein air'. Sometimes Rini had to hold my easel to prevent the painting to be blown away by the wind. More than once I had to pack up before finishing the painting because of the rain. Later I became interested in the people and their customs, particularly in the Touradas with, on one side, their merry harmless social and athletic character, and, on the other, their deep roots in older mythical cultural layers. I know that there is a debate amongst scholars about the question whether young athletes in classical Crete really jumped over bulls, as is depicted in the frescos. Now that I have seen young men perform this trick on the Azores the frescos seem to be much more plausible and realistic.

Anyway, I began to sketch the Touradas (see attachments) and when I had to make work for the exhibition in Velas it was not more than natural that I would plan a bigger painting dealing with this issue. You know the result. What is particularly interesting to me is the fact that Azorean society still has a certain pictorial virginality. Whenever one paints in Holland, France or Russia there are always masters looking over ones shoulders. One
can hardly look at the Dutch landscape with an innocent eye anymore. Van Gogh, would have painted that farm this way, Rembrandt that way etc. One is always in silent competitions with the old masters. This competition is absent for most subjects on the Azores (except of course in the omnipresent Emigrantes from Domingos Rebelo). This is for me a painter a nice experience. It means that I can invent the pictorial grammar apt for the subject as I paint. In the case of the Tourada painting I was interested in giving the painting a certain graphical character. Hence the use of contour lines and large fields of color. The sky is one blob of blue, the ground one blob of yellow. This draws the eye of the viewer to the center of the picture 'where the action is'. I wanted to paint the bull as directly as possible using only a limited number of strokes with a large brush, thus suggesting pure force and rage. The young men on the other hand are rendered in light contour lines that gives them an elegance almost like that of dancers. They stand out. All the other action in the painting (the houses, the spectators, the hills) are projected on a thin horizontal band in the middle of the painting."