Discover our collection online

The renowned sculptor Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) said it was his task to combine five forms in a single new shape. Beelden aan Zee’s online collection presentation does precisely the opposite, by distinguishing between five form -defining aspects of modern sculpture. The Hildebrand Monument (1947) by Rijksakademie Professor Jan Bronner (1881-1972) connects all five aspects, where again Bronner’s admiration for Maillol is shown. Jan Bronner was a pioneer of and key figure within Dutch sculpture, and as professor at the Rijksakademie between 1914, he tutored of dozens of Dutch sculptors. If you look at the Hildebrandt statues together, new thematics continuously emerge which coincide with the topics of this digital collection presentation. The first theme of monuments and statues in the public space is clearly present, for Bronner’s statues stand outside, around a walled pond in the Haarlemmer Hout in Haarlem. The second theme depicts statues which bear witness to influences far beyond Dutch borders, and Bronner was always very interested in French Gothic and art from Asia (see the ornamentation of Teun de Jager). The third theme, the theme of the human figure, Bronner brilliantly shaped in his works to satisfy his own idiosyncratic will. And the fourth theme, abstraction, was the keynote of Bronner’s figuration. His tendency towards abstraction was elaborated in his aphorism Sculpture = architecture, architecture = Sculpture. Finally, the last theme – conceptualism, is an element which Bronner investigated in the masterly Diakenhuismannetje. As a figure built up of unbelievably imaginative shapes, commentary is made not only the body, but also on sculpture as a medium itself.