Bart Lodewijks & Jan Kempenaers - Kerselare Drawings and Photographs (Part 1)

Bart Lodewijks & Jan Kempenaers Kerselare Drawings and Photographs (Part 1)

Roma

Bart Lodewijks & Jan Kempenaers Kerselare Drawings and Photographs (Part 1) In memoriam Juliaan Lampens (1926-2019)

Roma Publications

7 November 2019 Juliaan Lampens has died. I just read it in the paper and I don’t know what to say. Last spring I started to draw on his most famous building, the Chapel of Kerselare. I wanted to show him the drawings as they were finished, along with the photos Jan Kempenaers was taking. We were working toward finishing by the first Sunday in April 2020, the day of The High Mass.* Now that the grand master is no longer around, though, the project has taken on a different significance. In the last contact I had with him, Lampens gave me his blessing. ‘Nice impression,’ he relayed through his son Dieter. The text was, of course, never meant as a memoriam, but it became that this morning in light of his death.

* The Tour of Flanders cycling event, otherwise known as The High Mass, has been held on the first Sunday of April since 1913.

Edelareberg, where the chapel is located, has been part of the course some 35 times, but the chapel itself has never received particular mention. It was Juliaan Lampens’ desire, and a goal of this art project, to have air footage of the chapel broadcast live around the world on Sunday, 5 April 2020.

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In the beginning There was a blackboard wall in Eke In 1961 a chapel that was a site of pilgrimage in the small Belgian village of Kerselare burned to the ground. All that could be saved was the Late Gothic statue of the Virgin Mary. A new chapel arose from the ashes, designed by the Flemish Brutalist* architect Juliaan Lampens. That building was erected of raw architectural concrete and criticized from day one for melding so poorly with its surroundings. I, on the other hand, fell for it like a tonne of bricks.

Despite having been built for eternity, the new chapel already suffers from concrete rot and there is even talk of tearing it down.

I visited the 92-year-old Lampens and asked whether I could draw on the chapel with school chalk. He disclosed to me that he had originally sketched the chapel in chalk on a blackboard wall in his studio in Eke before it was built from 1963 to 1966.

The chalk drawings I want to make on the chapel represent a reimagination, a return to the erased ideas that originated on the wall in Eke. Working with the photographer Jan Kempenaers sporadically across the seasons, my idea is to create an artistic perspective in which the chapel reclaims its place in time. We want to preserve the building from demolition – without having to move a single stone.

* Brutalism: A style of architecture that emerged from modernism (from the fifties through the seventies of last century). The term ‘brutalism’ derives from the French ‘béton brut’, for ‘raw concrete’.

The Chapel of Our Lady of Kerselare in Edelare (Oudenaarde, Belgium) is located on Edelareberg in Kerselare on the eponymous street, along the regional carriageway N8 running from Oudenaarde to Geraardsbergen in the Flemish Ardennes.

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10 July 2017 Dear Mr Lampens: Thank you for receiving Jan Kempenaers and me so graciously in your apartment on that warm June evening. We were greatly encouraged to learn that you see merit in having your masterpiece drawn on in chalk. I hope to start soon on the drawing, and Jan, too, cannot wait to start taking photographs. We will keep you abreast of our progress over the next year. Of course, first the church board must be convinced of the value of our poetic deed, not to mention the Flemish Heritage Agency, which likes to have the final say concerning such prestigious properties. It is your blessing that counts most, however. Now we just need it underscored by the other parties.

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‘Grand old lady’ on crutches How a roguish giant mindlessly kicked away a stone and triggered an avalanche 1 May 2019 I place the first line of chalk on the statue of the Virgin Mary standing on a plinth at the entrance to the pilgrimage site. Despite the advent of spring, it is still cold out. I warm my hands under my jacket stuffed with down, feeling abandoned by God and all. The drawing is not going well, I grumble to myself.

I can hear doves cooing in the chapel, all cosy and cuddled together. This is their domain. What jolly little creatures they are, waddling around winking at me; they pick up instantly on my loneliness.

‘You’re drawing a beautiful white stole on Our Lady,’ I hear a creaky voice say behind me. The words are those of Godelieve, an elderly woman wearing a plastic rain cap with a flower pattern.

The head covering is held in place by a slightly-too-tight elastic band pressing against her Adam’s apple. It doesn’t appear to bother her, though, given that she rattles inexhaustibly on. I should know how much her life is interwoven with the chapel’s history: ‘My mother and I saw the old chapel burning from the hills, flames bursting up from out of the nave. I was just a little girl; it must have been sometime in the early sixties... My mother believed there was a healing spring under the chapel that alleviated her joint pain. Whenever we visited, she’d walk without crutches on the grass for a bit. (...) But all good things come to an end. I was the first to see the burning towers fall and cried all day long.’ Words of sorrow rain down upon me. ‘I only know the new chapel,’ I say, pointing to the concrete building supported by a dozen or so brutally ugly yellow steel uprights. ‘A grand old lady on crutches,’ I blurt out. ‘Grand old lady? That building is ten years younger than I am,’ she says in mock offense, and it sounds as if she’s talking about a real person.

I have taken a liking to this site of pilgrimage, built in 1966 near the top of Edelareberg just a few metres from where the original chapel stood, and will be drawing on its façade in chalk across the seasons – an engagement that took some doing to 25

procure (but more on that later). There is a biting north-easterly wind blowing. I pull my collar up higher and stamp my feet on the ground to warm up. How can I get a handle on this modernist building of harnessed concrete? Bits of the rebar have forced their way outward, but for the rest the chapel sits there, impregnable.

How many storms has it not withstood? It appears much less compromised than the wagging tongues would have it; people just parrot what they hear. In all its weightiness, the building also has something playful about it, I notice – or could it be the setting?

The top of Edelareberg looks as if it has been indented by a huge thumb or some roguish giant in years past carelessly kicked at a stone and set off an avalanche. The hilltop was left open like a gaping mouth, a crater offering protection to parishioners, pilgrims and architecture aficionados – and to ordinary people like myself and Godelieve standing next to me. A gigantic shop window has been set into the mountain opening, a glass lens, so that wind and weather have no impact on the services held in the building. An eruption of concrete, steel and glass. A tribute to the architect, I think to myself.

This morning, the sun sent the shadows of the trees dancing across the chapel floor. Everything was peace and light. When I stepped back from the building, the low-hung sun sparkled in the glass, exchanging winks with me and making my heart race. Even though I knew the winking eyes were an illusion, I was filled with a sense that – it’s almost too childish for words – I had to undertake something for the good the building. All these years I’ve never experienced religious inspiration, though that’s not to say places of worship leave me cold. But still, maybe the hallowed ground was working its magic on me.

‘It’s a monstrosity,’ Godelieve blurts out. ‘Well now,’ I say, ‘there are thousands of chapels that all look alike, but there’s only one like this. You should be proud of this building.’ ‘It was foisted on the parishioners, but we have learned to live with it,’ she sighed, ‘and the younger generation doesn’t know any better.’

I say nothing. ‘The yellow uprights are a thorn in our side,’ she says suddenly. ‘Then I have good news for you,’ I reply, relieved to find some common ground. ‘Research has shown that the uprights 27

are no longer necessary. The Oudenaarde city council decided yesterday that those useless metal eyesores can be removed; there’s nothing wrong with the chapel’s stability. I read in the paper this morning that the supports are going to be auctioned off.’ This is met by silence. ‘No longer necessary?’ she repeats my words in disbelief. ‘That’s strange... must be divine providence.’

I look at her in surprise. ‘Yesterday was the eve of the pilgrimage season; traditionally, though, the miracles do not start happening until today,’ she says. We both look at the chapel, standing stoically in the landscape. She speaks softly now, as if she needs to watch what she says, and her voice falters somewhat: ‘So, the uprights are no longer needed.’ The stress falls on ‘no longer’, so that it indeed sounds like a miracle has occurred and the chapel healed on its own.

I bend toward her and want to say, ‘Your mother’s prayers have been answered,’ but swallow my words. There was no need to bite my tongue, though, because she completes my thought: ‘Even after the fire, this place continued to have a beneficial effect on my mother.’ She catches her breath. ‘When I’m here, I remember my mother. I can see her stepping carefully over the grass between the daisies; there were all these little pathways then.

Without her crutches, she transformed into a kind of tightrope walker seeking balance, as if there were ropes strung up between the planter beds. She always hoped her joint pain would disappear and she wouldn’t need the crutches anymore.’

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‘Meeting someone new means renouncing oneself’ I take a seat solemnly at the foot of Lampens’ bed 7 April 2017 Old man Lampens is 92 years old, bedridden but still looking sprightly. I take a seat solemnly at the foot of his bed, somewhat wary since I do not know what to expect.

The photographer Jan Kempenaers and I have driven here to the nursing home De Lichtervelde in Eke, where the old master lives with his wife, to meet with him. Jan has photographed a good portion of the architect’s oeuvre over the years and possesses a great deal of information. ‘The Chapel of Kerselare is Lampens’ masterpiece,’ he reiterates in the car, ‘but the house Lampens designed for the Vandenhaute family is seriously impressive, too.

If we are not allowed to draw on the chapel, we could always approach the Vandenhautes; they’re great people.’ ‘Vandenhaute... isn’t that who owns the Tour of Flanders?’ I wonder aloud. ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Jan mumbles. He thinks it’s strange that something as massive as the Tour has an owner.

The room at the nursing home is small but you can tell from every detail in it that enlightened people live there. There are open books lying around, plus a dusty model on a cabinet which I think I recognize as the chapel. We’ve been invited here in response to a letter I wrote to Lampens two weeks ago.

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Dear Mr Lampens, the letter begins. The photographer Jan Kempenaers and I have a particular interest in your architectural masterwork, Our Lady of Kerselare. When I saw the chapel for the first time, it was as if something transpired between me and the building. For years I have been making linear chalk drawings on walls, houses, churches and factories in cities around the world.

I have seen a great many buildings up close, but when I stood in front of the chapel, my heart skipped a few beats. It is an unpolished diamond, an inspired, unconventional building that screams for chalk drawings.

Simply put, I am asking for permission to make some chalk drawings on the chapel and to photograph it. The interventions I have in mind are relatively simple, but what we hope to achieve with them goes beyond a mere drawing that will be washed away with heavenly rainwater. This project is an ode to the chapel, its surroundings and your vision. You are, of course, the first person we have informed of our plans, and we would very much like to meet with you. Without your approval, we will not undertake the project, to which we plan to devote a full year.

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Lampens pulls himself up, somewhat askew, and says, ‘The reason I invited you here is that you work with chalk.’ His son Dieter carefully slides an extra pillow under his father’s head and asks if we would like some coffee. ‘You wrote that you have been making abstract drawings with chalk on buildings for over twenty years and one day you came across the Chapel of Kerselare.

Let me guess: you saw a sort of chalkboard – is it safe to say that?’ ‘As I stood in front of the chapel, all I could think about were chalk drawings, but the building is hardly a chalkboard,’ I say impulsively and with all honesty. I’m shocked at my own assertiveness; it’s not like I’m in front of some jury that requires convincing, yet that’s what it sounds like. Searching for the right tone, I continue: ‘Concrete and chalk, eternity and transience, two quantities that are irreconcilable yet cannot exist without each other. When I stood in front of the chapel, I felt challenged to strike an accord between the two. The chapel is an unpolished diamond, an unconventional building,’ I regurgitate from the letter I wrote him. ‘It is a shell-shaped refuge, proof that Flanders was once a seabed...,’ I add spontaneously. I’m almost choking on the superlatives and start to stutter. A smile forms on the old man’s face, at which point I blurt out, ‘I saw that the chapel has concrete rot.’

‘Why in the world did you bring up the concrete rot?’ Jan asks later, when we’re back in the car headed home. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? I actually find the broken bits quite beautiful; I don’t consider them a disgrace.’ ‘Didn’t you know that the estimates for renovation and demolition are about the same at present? It’s an ultra-sensitive topic.’ ‘It just popped out...’ ‘For all we know, the chapel will be demolished. There are some in the community calling for the building to be torn down...’

The smile on Lampens’ face tightens at mention of the words ‘concrete rot.’ An eerie silence falls over the room, with only the coffee machine gurgling imperturbably on. ‘I would like to try and protect the building against the ravages of time with my chalk drawings, without having to move a single stone,’ I say to break the silence. Another one of those lines from the letter, as if I am weighing every word. It is a bold statement, too, seeing as 51

it contains claims I must somehow live up to. Our acquaintance is still in its infancy. ‘I’m appealing to you because you are the lord and master of the chapel,’ I say with bated breath. He lifts up his arm to indicate that he is not the boss. ‘The founding father, then?’ I correct myself. ‘The bishop is the boss; it would be something if I had authority over all my buildings. The chapel sprouted from my mind; that is correct. That must suffice,’ he says.

‘That is why we had to meet one another,’ he adds mysteriously in his fragile voice. I slide my chair closer to hear him better.

‘In the early years, I trusted my ideas to a blackboard wall in my studio in Eke,’ he continues. I look at him dumbfounded; he also drew with chalk. I could never have imagined that. A chalk draughtsman? It’s consistent with the person I see before me, though: observing, listening... not exactly a hothead, as the term ‘brutalism’ originally made me think. His voice betrays a respect for language; he stacks his words like blocks, walls you can walk right through that are there nonetheless. His inner world is much softer than cement, but he tackled the world with reinforced concrete in his professional life because that was how he could make his ideas visible. Could that be it? Aspects that resonate with my own work rise to the surface. The chapel was built from chalk and words, intalligible and malleable, bound together by concrete and steel. Words and steel connected in a liminal state.

The hidden steel meshwork holding everything together. The same could be said of philosophical constructs: you cannot see them, but they still hold everything together.

‘Afterwards I would erase the sketches with a felt eraser but not until they had been seared into my mind,’ he picks up the thread.

I sigh heavily in deep recognition. ‘I erased all of the drawings that formed the basis for the chapel.’ ‘You saved some of them on paper, Papa,’ Dieter reminds his father. ‘Pencil drawings,’ he says disdainfully, as if that disqualified them. That must have been one of his principles from back in the day that allowed him to walk with his head held high, because you have to be stern to live off poetry. ‘I loved drawing my buildings in chalk, rubbing the drawings until nobody could make anything out anymore except 53

for me. “Unto dust shalt thou return,” ha-ha,’ he laughs meekly.

‘I am not a religious person but I am intrigued by proverbs. To the outside world, the chalk sketches are part of a lost archive – a presumed lost archive,’ he interrupts himself, ‘because nothing is ever truly lost.’ I look at him curiously. ‘The good news is that I have remained lord and master of my own archives.’

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It slowly dawns on me that he is reaching out to me, not literally but figuratively. The only place I truly want to draw is in the mind, a place no one can go. I think he feels the same way and the chapel was his ultimate attempt to reach into people’s minds. It tips open the top of Edelareberg ever so slightly, as if a skull were being exposed; the space created offers room for contemplation. ‘In other words, the chalk drawings you want to make on the chapel constitute a reimagination, a return to my erased ideas that originated on that blackboard wall in the studio in Eke, where I drew the chapel with school chalk,’ he concludes in a single breath. I’m overtaken by the same feeling I had when I first saw the chapel. It’s another fateful meeting, a destiny, but now between an old dinosaur and a young buck; there’s almost half a century between us.

I’ve been caught unaware by his chalky past; the cogs in my head are spinning like mad trying to put everything in its place. The idea of casting my own thoughts in concrete flashes buoyantly through my mind. Jan remains seated motionless in his chair. What’s going through his mind? I see Dieter looking at me, friendly and magnanimously. ‘I combed through your entire oeuvre and didn’t find any traces of chalk,’ I say cautiously. ‘It is an unknown part of me; only close friends know about it,’ he says in a confidential tone. Then he turns to his son, ‘Dieter, grab the bottle back out from the cabinet.’ It’s whisky, the drink of battlefields and peace treaties. And Our Lady of Kerselare feels just as turbulent at the moment in this room filled with peace and quiet – all before I have made a single mark.

‘When Father won the prize to build the chapel, he instantly gained a multitude of enemies,’ says Dieter. ‘We laugh about it now, but it did create a serious controversy, even between you and your immediate colleagues, huh, papa...’. They rattle off the names of the parties who were for or against building the chapel.

Jan and I let them pour us another one out of loyalty to the family, and we toast to the fact that Lampens won the prize and not someone else, as if the results have just been announced.

The alleged concrete rot does not really come up. ‘It is all the fault of the subcontractor, who mixed too much water into the 59

cement when I was not around.’ More than that Lampens does not care to divulge. Half an Ardennes forest was cut down for the concrete moulds and each plank was used only once, creating endless variation in the woodgrain reliefs. ‘You might not see the differences in the wood texture right off but you can sense there is more to it than what you see.’

As we depart, Lampens impresses upon us the need for convincing the church board of the value of our poetic deed.

‘Without their permission, you won’t be able to accomplish anything,’ he says, wishing us all the luck in the world with such enthusiasm that I’m almost afraid to leave the nursing home – afraid that we should need so much luck. One sentence in particular stuck with me. He uttered it slowly, solemnly; it concealed a certain loneliness, a desire for abandon, as if a proverb had appeared on the wall, a sentence he maybe wrote as a young architect which had not lost any of its significance in the past half century. He said, ‘Meeting someone new means renouncing oneself.’

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We are also poor Discussions with the church board 17 April 2018 The church board has offices on Grote Markt in Oudenaarde, across from the Walburga church, a squat pile of three churches in one, a power base that towers over the surrounding hills. Seated next to me are Jan and Dieter. Across from us sit seven dignitaries from the city and the dean: the church board in whose hands the fate of the chalk project lies.

‘Ten years ago, I sat in this room facing your predecessor, Dean Peerenboom,’ I say, addressing the new dean. ‘At that time, I was given permission to draw on a section of Walburga church. That was as part of Versus V, an art festival held in your city in 2009.

I claimed that the chalk would wash off the church in the rain.

The fact that it’s still there is proof to the contrary.’ That is as much as I had prepared, and I soon realize that the humorous part of my introduction is completely lost on those present; even Jan’s face retains its serious set. Dieter shrinks a bit into his chair.

Suddenly I remember that Dean Peerenboom and I didn’t have an actual discussion. ‘He led me into this room and left me waiting a long time,’ I hurriedly add. To my surprise, the assembled company now gives murmurs of support. ‘When Peerenboom finally entered, he set down two Westvleterens* on the table and the matter appeared to be decided.’ ‘You understood my predecessor perfectly,’ says the dean, ‘but Kerselare is another story. What exactly do you want from us?’ I tell them about the meeting with Lampens and that we received his blessing but that we also were given express orders to sit at the table with the church board. ‘Mr Lampens obviously built the chapel for eternity,’ I explain further, ‘but the drawings on which it is based have largely disappeared, literally erased. They were chalk drawings,’ * Westvleteren is a renowned Trappist beer brewed by the monks of the Saint Sixtus Abbey of Westvleteren (in West Flanders).

Production is limited to whatever is needed to raise enough money to cover the monks’ living expenses.

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I say, as if revealing a secret. None of the church members react.

Maybe I would be better off keeping it short and sweet. The pile of papers on the table indicates that there are more items on the agenda tonight. ‘Lampens considers his chalk drawings to be “a presumed lost archive,”’ I rush on. ‘They are not really lost, though, because they’re stored in his head. By making chalk drawings on the chapel, I hope to bring the lost archive back to life and in any event to attest to how closely transience and eternity are intertwined.’ The dean knits his brows alarmingly at the word ‘intertwined’. To prevent any gaps from falling in my narrative, I quickly add: ‘I consider the chapel to be an important intermediary between eternity and transience.’ I take a breath and think to myself that now I am in front of a jury that requires convincing. How different it was sitting at Lampens’ bedside.

‘The future of the chapel raises questions for which there are no easy answers at the present time.’ That sounds weak. ‘An artistic paradigm could present other vanishing or focal points to provide a possible answer,’ I continue. ‘Chalk lines can create a future perspective without anything having to be rebuilt, renovated or relocated.’

I stop talking. I have said my piece and fear that anything I might add would detract from what I already said. ‘You should know that we are extremely sympathetic to good ideas but we are a poor association with a very limited budget,’ the dean says.

‘Well, then we should join hands,’ I exclaim. ‘We,’ and I point to myself and Jan and Dieter, ‘are also poor.’ The board members stare at us, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Jan and Dieter sit up straight in their chairs. It is as if suddenly everyone at the table were one another’s equal; there is a sense of brotherhood, relief too, at least on my part. The dean starts speaking again: ‘I’m in favour of your idea and appreciate that you approached Mr Lampens first. As far as I’m concerned, you can draw on the chapel with chalk for the four seasons, as long as you can guarantee us that it won’t cost us anything and no traces will be left behind, like on the Walburga church.’ He looks around at the circle of board members, who all nod in agreement, then calmly continues: ‘But before you start, you will need to get official 72

permission from the Flemish Heritage Agency. The chapel is a historic landmark.’ ‘“We are also poor,” how’d you come up with that?’ says Jan with a chuckle once we’re outside. ‘The Flemish Heritage Agency, that seems like a pretty big hurdle,’ I say. ‘I think they might be open to it,’ Dieter assures us. The three of us cross the square.

‘Is it true that your father also designed a home for Vandenhaute, the owner of the Tour of Flanders?’ I ask, recalling the talk Jan and I had in the car on the way to Lichtervelde. ‘Yes, for Wouter’s parents. Why?’ ‘Seems to me it’d be nice if helicopter shots of a chalked chapel were broadcast during the Tour. Imagine if your father turned on the TV when the cyclists were climbing Edelareberg. It would be a wonderful tribute.’

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Our Lady Inept at the art of devotion 1 May 2019 The trees are net yet leafed-out, so the view is magnificent. Jan and I are mildly euphoric because, completely against expectations, the Flemish Heritage Agency has unanimously approved the dossier ‘Chalk drawings on the Chapel of Kerselare’. Nothing else stands in our way, though we remain poor. There’s a felled tree alongside the paved walkway leading to the chapel and the lawn is littered with branches. With our collars raised against the wind, we proceed along the narrow circumambulation, a winding path around the chapel dotted with so-called bas-reliefs in artificial rock. They depict the seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary, I read on the plaque, once again confronted with my inadequate knowledge of devotional practices.

‘I think it would be better not to attack the chapel right off with chalk but to start out by circling around,’ says Jan. ‘Treading with some hesitation might yield more insight than jumping right into action.’ No sooner has he said this than my eye falls on the granite statue of the patroness at the entrance to the site. It seems perfectly natural to me to draw chalk lines on this statue first – better to do it today, with the view of the chapel still so open, than to wait. Although it is actually still a bit too cold for drawing, in a few weeks everything will be fully leafed out. ‘We’ll get in trouble if you draw on the Madonna statue,’ Jan says. ‘Desecration of the icon; that’s bound to end badly.’ Then there’s a good chance it might be both my first and my last drawing here, I think to myself.

We got permission from all the relevant parties to draw on the chapel but we are presumably to keep off the statues around it, or in any event no agreements were made regarding them; we simply forgot to include the Virgin Mary in the project, I mutter to myself. ‘Well, we certainly can’t ask her, Jan.’ ‘Maybe you should just appeal to her in your usual manner,’ he says by way of encouragement.

I spend the entire afternoon drawing chalk lines on the Virgin Mary, while Jan combs the surroundings with his camera. Beside me, Godelieve goes on, ‘Hopefully, the stole will also provide some 117

warmth on these cold nights. I’ve had a good look around and counted the yellow supports: there are exactly fourteen. It seems so unbelievable, what you told me earlier. Could they really be no longer necessary?’ she asks. I grin sheepishly and recall a tall tale about a miracle. ‘Do you know the one about the completely paralysed man who was plunged, wheelchair and all, into the holy waters of Lourdes?’ I ask. She shrugs her shoulders, unsure what to say to that. ‘When he came back up, he was still paralysed, but the wheelchair had new tyres.’ ‘That is appropriate,’ she says, ‘then at least all those prayers are good for something.’

Evening falls and my fingers are stiff from drawing, but as long as I can still hold the stick of chalk, everything’s fine. Jan is nowhere to be seen, and Godelieve has long since gone home. The drawing on the statue of the Virgin Mary is practically finished.

I drew a small square on the granite plinth by way of signature.

Needless to say, no words were exchanged between the patroness and me. ‘It is more than symbolic that the origins of the chapel in chalk lines and my attempt to preserve it with chalk lines should meet in an embrace,’ I murmur to myself. Maybe she caught some of that, our Mary; God only knows. Meeting someone new means renouncing oneself – you could definitely say I took that to heart.

I tuck the chalk box under my arm and descend Edelareberg in search of Jan.

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Bart Lodewijks & Jan Kempenaers Kerselare Drawings and Photographs (Part 1) Drawings and text Bart Lodewijks Photographs Jan Kempenaers Editing Danielle van Zuijlen Translation Dutch-English Nina Woodson Translation of Lampens epigram (p. 37) Claire Singleton Design Roger Willems & Dongyoung Lee Publisher Roma Publications, Amsterdam This project is the initiative of Bart Lodewijks and Jan Kempenaers, with gratitude for the support of the city of Oudenaarde, the O.L.V. Geboortekerk Pamele, and the Lampens family.

Special thanks to Juliaan Lampens and Dieter Lampens.

ROMA 378a Š Bart Lodewijk, Jan Kempenaers, Roma Publications, 2019

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Roma 378a