Fine-Art „Giclée“-Print on canvas – stretched over a wooden frame with a depth of 2 cm
Illustration by Roman Kroke (2009)
Mesures: 40 cm x 30 cm
Customized title: language freely selectable – please specify the language of your choice during the order (in the preview: French)
Annotations to the illustration by Roman Kroke:
I created the illustration on the basis of the following citations from Etty’s diary:
“Sometimes, when I least expect it, someone suddenly kneels down in some corner of my being. When I’m out walking or just talking to people. And that someone, the one who kneels down, is myself.”
16 September 1942
“And that part of myself, that deepest and richest part in which I repose, is what I call “God.” (…) Hineinhorchen – I so wish I could find a Dutch equivalent for that German word. Truly, my life is one long hearkening unto myself and unto others, unto God. And if I say that I hearken, it is really God who hearkens inside me. The most essential and the deepest in me hearkening unto the most essential and deepest in the other. God to God. (…) Sometimes they [people] seem to me like houses with open doors. I walk in and roam through passages and rooms, and every house is furnished a little differently, and yet they are all of them the same, and every one must be turned into a dwelling dedicated to You, oh God.”
17 September 1942
This illustration is devoted to Etty’s conception of “God” – which is a very personal one. In this context, we encounter again her idea about an outer and an inner world (cf. my annotation to the illustration “Sky”). On the left of the illustration, we see a situation which takes place in the outer world. I imagined a setting which is a continuation of that depicted in the preceding illustration, “Flowers”: Etty in the middle of a conversation with friends, with the bouquet of roses on the table. In contrast to this, the right of the illustration visualizes Etty’s inner world, which stands for her understanding of God as described in the excerpts.
Whereas the roses of the outer world (left) are depicted in shades of grey, there are red petals blowing through Etty’s inner world (right). In view of the day-to-day misery, many of Etty’s acquaintances cannot understand how she is still able to enjoy flowers. In these people’s eyes, even colourful flowers “appear” grey. In contrast to them, Etty draws inner strength from the splashes of colour.
Etty’s inner voice (= the voice of God) is depicted as writing floating through her inner world. I based the form of the writing on Etty’s handwriting as it appears in her original diary – the inner voice being a precursor to that which she later wrote down. The same applies to the white masks floating through the hallways of her inner world – they were inspired by original sketches which Etty drew in her diary.