Anyone who has been to the Baie de Somme in Picardie, France, will remember the astonishing sunsets, different every night. They will also remember the tidal flats of greys and greens, different every hour. The tidal waters, married with the river’s contribution, create snaking channels in the grey and beige sand, sometimes mirroring blue skies, at other moments reflecting the moving clouds, forever changing. Nothing is stationary or stagnant. Capturing this moving reality looks impossible. Annet Hiltermann, a Dutch painter visiting Le Crotoy as an artist in residence, captures what is there – the skies, the water, even the mud – adopting a “nothing but the truth” approach. Anyone who has been to the tidal delta will say, yes, that’s exactly it.
It is tempting in art reviews to look through the lens of art-historic contributions (e.g. Paul Cezanne’s broad brushstroke apples’ impact on 19th and 20th-century painting) or explore new ways of looking at and representing the world (recall the notorious “Fountain”, the ‘’readymade’’ porcelain urinal signed by Marcel Duchamp) and how this changes our views on what art is. The personal development journey of how an artist found their voice (see Rothko) can be enriching, and it can be intriguing to focus on the artist-celebrity (e.g. Andy Warhol, who created his Marilyn Monroe and Chairman Mao iconic prints) and their lives, with the artist a work of art, a brand. It can also be enlightening to focus on the techniques of painting and how an impact is achieved by looking at composition, colour and brushstroke. Each lens is valid and interesting.
But what if there is another way of appreciating the special contribution of an artist – by focusing on the honest and modest task of representing reality as it is? Reality is the star and subject, not the painter. Also, why always focus on the world’s well-known stars with established brands? Why not focus not on the talented person who could be working in the flat next door, and explore their approach, learn from it, and be empowered, emboldened and truly inspired? Seeing the art and approach to painting of Annet Hiltermann brought this home to me – her modest “Nothing but the Truth landscapes” of the Baie de Somme in Picardie, France, is the subject of this article, and her approach to deciding each painting by seeking out a resonance between the landscape and her.
We’ve all been on walks and been impressed by many forms of clouds, and, as children, spent time seeking animals in the migrating clouds. Annet Hiltermann seeks not to project or impose form onto the clouds but to capture their structure, their essence. And clouds are not just white or grey, but also yellow, orange, pink and red, and even purple and blue, even black. They can be static or fast-moving, light as a veil or disturbingly heavy.
Sunsets are for romantic walks, but there is awe also from the staggering beauty of the skies, not just the changing colour of the sun, from blinding-don’t-look-directly-at-yellow to blood orange to a warm, receding red. Sometimes looking away from the setting sun helps us see the sunset through the reflections in the clouds. The sky changes from light blue to hazy yellows and pinks and… many shades of the rainbow without needing rain.
Don’t forget the reflections in mirroring waters that forever change, giving us a second look at the clouds and their many different shapes. See below. What do you see in the water? The water mirrors also take ever-changing shapes. I can see an eagle in clogs there – perhaps a signature choice by Annet Hiltermann, the Dutch artist with an eagle eye who soars free over the landscapes, at one with nature.
Hollywood movies and travel brochures promote “should be” cream-coloured sandy beaches, but in the Baie de Somme, we have plenty of mud, creating infinite variations of greys, greens, browns and beiges interspaced with reflected blues and whites. At low tides, there are nigh infinite walks and the best feeling in the world is to walk barefoot across sand and mud and shells and mirroring waters into the sunset. I never thought I’d love mud, and I’ve always had an aversion to the colour grey, but the Baie de Somme cured me of these limitations.
Painting after painting, Annet Hiltermann captures the reality of this unique landscape. So, what is her process? Annet shared that she generally likes to take a tent and camp within nature, living it, imbibing it. She rarely paints on the first or second day but explores. When ready, she ‘leans into nature’, waiting for a resonance between her and nature. When that feeling emerges, she studies the infinity of what there is and seeks to see what the essence is, what is the simplification of reality that still captures this reality. Once that clicks, she paints. Three hours and the painting is done (for fine-tuning later). In the Baie de Somme, the wind is a near-constant companion, so she looks, looks, looks until the landscape is in her mind and goes to paint, with some photos as reminders to double-check that she has captured the essence.
Annet isn’t fuelled by a desire to create masterpieces to be admired, nor does she seek to paint what others will buy; rather, she combines a Taoist approach of resonance with nature with an arguably stoic approach of simply doing what she can do as well as she can do it – paint and capture what is there. If the resonance is pure, and the concentration and focus there, the painting is strong. There is humility and modesty and purity in Annet’s approach: take time to see and paint the truth of what is there. And the results follow. For my taste, they are great.
Visit the Baie de Somme with this article in hand to see for yourself how well she captures the reality here. Annet spent over a month in residence in Le Crotoy, producing 28 paintings. They have yet to be uploaded onto her website, where you can see her work from Iceland, Portugal, Estonia, Sweden, and many other countries in her long career as a landscape painter, forever trying to paint the truth and nothing but the truth of each landscape she beholds.
