Larry Siedentop collection_personal curation

The Larry Siedentop Collection at the Hope College’s Kruizenga Art Museum

rum ut laut es core nos aut dunt.

Vitis illore architat. In porisquatur solore entio tes nonsedionem et eum quam quaecti bearuptatium restiis duntincto iuscipid quatiam re nusErspernatem idessin ction se nemposs enimagnam, quam alitae veri bla nobitat fuga. Faccu llacita ipsamAquat quates eatur as ad qui consequi test, si ut quo iducit is et aut harciam, temquas et officti utet est, ut accaes excea necatur? Picimusciam quo tenduci litatet iuriatiis reritat emolorum faccae verero od maximet liquaer sperum fugiaturento dolupitibus eiciet fuga. Tem eni ad ex eum as quiatec estibus que prentot assus.

Itatectatur ateceatur ariatem olup

The idea behind these graphics would be to use information and data about the collection to create a visual representation of the collection as a whole. Conceptually this will show how these unique and separate pieces are united through the collecting of Mr Siedentop and Hope’s Kruizenga Art Museum.

The Larry Siedentop Collection at the Hope College Kruizenga Art Museum This section of text could be a short biography of Larry Siedentop, as well as a discussion of his art collection, including when, where and the impetus for him beginning to collect art. A specific anecdote of how Mr Siedentop came across and acquired a specific piece, here included, would offer an interesting insight for readers and could lead to how his collection affords a great opportunity for acedemic study and research to clarify the artwork’s history, and provenance.

Our thought was to ask Charles Mason to write this.

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Rhetoric Larry Siedentop I sometimes think dinner party conversation in London is actually better than dinner party conversation at Oxford or Cambridge because people are more used to different voices, voices coming from different directions. And they have to make a case for what they’re interested in or what they believe. That’s both a mental and a moral discipline I think; to be open to what’s going on.

It nearly always pays off intellectually to think in terms of pros and cons. After all that was what became the distinctive feature of universities when they emerged in Europe at the end of the 12th and early 13th centuries. You know at medieval universities, almost the single most important form of teaching was not so much lectures, or even the sort of tutorials we have in Oxford and Cambridge, but small debates organized around some proposition and one student would be asked to make the case for the proposition and another student the case against the proposition.

The rise of Europe is very closely tied to the emergence of its universities. And the method of teaching, which developed very early, was yes and nos. People would have to be able to make the case for and against. That’s very good for the mind. It dislodges it from easy fixed opinions.

That dialectical form of teaching remains a very useful model. And one of the strengths of British higher education and British life traditionally, though I think its rather at risk now, had a lot to do with what the ancient and medieval world would have called rhetoric, the study of rhetoric, and the ability to speak clearly and to the point. The clergy in the high middle ages was often criticized as having put the church slightly out of reach by hiding behind a language so arcane that it didn’t easily reach the people in the street. And I dare say that was one of the many things that contributed to the reformation.

But I think academic subjects are vulnerable to that temptation to develop a language in which the object sometimes seems not necessarily to convey knowledge or wit, let alone wisdom, but to protect yourself from the outside world, and protect your own discipline as a rarified, precious thing which shouldn’t be exposed to too many challenges from outside.

Dinner party conversation where there’s a kind of thrusting and more than a little bit of irony and no one drums on about any one thing too long, is very different from dinner parties…composed of monologues.

“ The deep connection with my life, my interests, my academic work, was like dipping into the past and using it to understand paintings, things I’ve written and things I’ve read, you know, represent different dippings into the past I suppose. I don’t think there’s any more systematic connection than that.”

Political Class Larry Siedentop One of the unfortunate consequences of competition in a post war period between liberalism and Soviet communism was the competition between systems which could show [which] led to greater growth. And it contributed to a kind of obsession with economic growth and prosperity at the expense of almost everything else. And I think we’re now paying a price for having allowed our liberal beliefs and liberal institutions to be remolded too much by that obsession.

Look at American history and American politics. I mean the extraordinary thing about the American political system, well until fairly recently, was you might say the roll played by northeastern universities and law schools in shaping the American political class. Even if these as undergraduates came from all over the country, universities and law schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, imparted a certain culture and certain shared instincts, I think, to some of the brightest and the best, as they used to be described (laughs) …This became a very important factor in American public life…and I can’t help wondering if some of the what, at least from this [the British] side of the Atlantic, now look like deepened divisions in American society…hadn’t been made perhaps a bit worse by the absence or the decline of that kind of…social filter. …The political class actually had quite a lot in common, …very often [a] similar education or experience…and that tended to offset regional…and religious differences, and so forth.

And one of the things I regret most about of developments on BOTH sides of the Atlantic now is the way the word liberal has …tended to become a pejorative, which is quite mistaken. I mean, someone who was at Harvard in my time in the political science department called Louis Hartz wrote a book called Political Tradition in America in which he argued, quite rightly, that the conservative tradition in America is a liberal tradition…and that we’re [the United States] different…from Europe where there was this aristocratic background. So, I think it’s very unfortunate when liberal becomes a term of abuse.

Well, I’m still trying to (laughs) restore an earlier [definition] that I call a classical sense of liberal. Since it above all privileges freedom, that seems to me a usage which should be defended. …I rather regret the way the word has become a pejorative. I think some of those who…have begun to use the word as a pejorative would deeply regret the disappearance of liberal institutions (laughs) if they came up against it.

Britain never got around to…adopting a written constitution in the way that Americans did. And I’ve sometimes said…the American constitution is the 18th century British constitution that was never written, …but [in Britain there is an] absence of formal division of sovereignty, checks and balances, and other features of the American constitution. Here, I think many of those features, for instance checks and balances, depended on social conditions which can disappear …

The fact…that such an important part of the political class consisted of people who were born to privilege and money, and certainly had a great deal of confidence and could afford to have certain standards, you know, …that was a real impediment to populism.

What’s striking, I suppose, when you begin to privatize …service, public utilities, the post office, …where do you see the state? (laughs) Where do you see the common interest represented? It becomes very notional, rather elusive. I’m afraid then, you know, the chief way you see the state is in the police and the army (laughs) and uh I’m not sure I want the state represented only by the police and the army.

Music and Painting Professor John Doe

Letter, Corresondence Professor Jane Doe

The concept we had in designing these pieces is that members of the Hope College community or other experts could share their views about how their specialty related to art, as represented by Mr Siedentop’s collection.

The concept we had in designing these pieces is that members of the Hope College community or other experts could share their views about how their specialty related to art, as represented by Mr Siedentop’s collection.

Our thought was to ask a Professor of Music or Musicologist to write this piece. For example, this section of text might discuss music of the era, what people were listening to and how, relating it to art and taste of the time, perhaps looking at the crossover and cross pollination between the fields, to offer a broader contextual story to the collection and the period from which these paintings came.

Our thought was to have an historian or Professor of English or Dutch write this piece. For example this text could relate to personal correspondence and communication of the time with the intent to give context to the period and society from which these paintings came and the world they reflect. Perhaps correspondence between an artist of the time and a friend talking about art work, or between owners and buyers of art, giving a window to who and why the middle-class were buying or commissioning art.

Exercilitiis accus molorum fuga. Sit audandit, volor magnis destiis earcipsa sum quia quia quis atur adit hiciiscia quiatibus, Ditia velesci nobit. Excerum doluptis non plit, toreperum atiorit, quist, qui aut dolorro restrum lita num et dit enis qui conseca turest odigeni hicimol laboreptatem volendi sit.DoeIcium autem harchil isit et latem. Ota idit volumetum voluptat faci consequi cus ant.Olorrum accullo repersperum faces porestisque perioris erovitetur minvell orerum rem idunt perciat ibusam quo mi, sunt.

Fugitias accum rendemp oribus accus doloriam quostint. Tem quiatur mi, ad quam accae diciur apicae porum sequi odi sime nonectiusam qui reressum vendesequat praeptatis ullaudaecte dolore vitem quo volese volest evendaeptae pa nobis eum nisciasim quiae landita andi consequ isincimagnis sus eatiunt. Quat ea est, temquam, nus, earcips aestiis magnis sumqui ratem

OR de Tocqueville Larry Siedentop An alternative text, Mr. Siedentop could write about de Tocqueville, an area of specialization in Mr Siedentop’s own academic work and research. Perhaps Mr. Siedentop could discuss de Tocqueville’s correspondence, or relating de Tocqueville to the collection, collecting, to himself.

Mr. Siedentop would reflect his preferences as to what is covered here. lum quo occum eos et maioreic torum re dellis corum et essitae evellab oreptatur, quatem as doluptatur?

Vendae cumquod ignatio nsecest aut que ommoluptatis eum laborro vidende stiati dolo quiam re assit lam,

Know Thyself Larry Siedentop I will fall back on something that goes to ancient philosophy, “know thyself.” Know thyself. I mean, if you are passionately interested in something and there’s some question, or set of questions, you want to answer, pursue them, take risks. Don’t be too cautious. Make mistakes. You learn from mistakes sometimes more than from successes. And, I think caution is one of the enemies of achievement.

In doing my doctoral work, I was as it were, living in early 19th century France…because both of the subjects were… writing and thinking [about] the early decades of the 19th century. [This], of course, is the period when Tocqueville grew up and became a young magistrate before going to the United States. As a young aristocrat from a family, most of whom had been guillotined, I mean it’s…lucky he was born. His parents were imprisoned during The Reign of Terror in the French revolution and escaped execution by one day. By one day. When they [were] released from prison his father, in his mid twenties, his hair had turned white, and his mother was a nervous wreck and never recovered.

So, that legacy of the French revolution, and wrestling with the meaning of the French revolution and whether there will be any room in a democratic society for former aristocrats, …that became central to [Tocqueville’s] own quest, and led him, eventually, to cross the Atlantic with a friend and try to find some answers by looking closely at American society and it’s government.

One of the things I admire most about Tocqueville [is] he managed to write about American society, American political thought, American politics, political institutions, American moirés, a whole range of things, all without being heavily didactic. Without being tedious. And shortly after Democracy in America was published, the first part of his book was published in 1835, he met an Englishman whom he also met when traveling in the United States. [The Englishman] rushed up and congratulated him on the great success of his book, and then said, Toqueville was highly amused by this, what I so admire in your book is the way you avoid general ideas. (laughs) Well…the book is all about general ideas, but it hadn’t been labored. And so this fellow, not wanting to be the victim of general ideas, didn’t think he was. (laughs) And I wouldn’t have written about European Integration or the question of a Constitution for Europe, European Federalism, without having immersed myself in Democracy in America. The title of my book, Democracy in Europe, gives that away, …the profound difference he had on me.

I became very interested in French liberal thought because it was compared to early [liberal], or I suppose strictly speaking should be called proto-liberal thought, in the 17th and 18th century of Europe. Thought which contributed enormously to the writing of the American Constitution. French liberalism in the early 19th century was, you know in a way, much less

simply optimistic, (laughs) because (laughs) the advent of the revolution. And in one sense it means democracy in France had proved to be very bloody indeed. It sort of raised questions about, I mean it was in a way the great question Tocqueville wrestled with all his life, could a democratic society govern itself or not? Or would a democratic society sooner or later fall a victim of tyranny? And that remains the great political question of our time. I mean, if you look at the world, you can say that democratic beliefs, as far as social arrangements are concerned, have triumphed across the world. I mean, there are plenty of societies that are no longer founded on the privileges of birth—which is different from privileges of money, of course. There are only two obvious examples, Russia and China, that have become democratic societies, in a sense of egalitarianism, and renouncing privilege, social privilege, but in which this social democracy has provided a foundation for political tyranny.

Cultured Larry Siedentop We live in a very highly organized world, too organized I often think. And when I think of the difference between academic life when I first knew it teaching at Oxford and now…[in the past] people had time to go for long walks after lunch, and they would, two or three people [would] go and talk about something or other. And now they’re more likely to go to a committee meeting. And when it comes to the young, I’m struck by the way they’re constantly looking at their iPads or on their mobile phones, and I think the result of that can be a kind of fear of being solitary, being left to your own devices. And yet, being left to your own devices is really the necessary condition, I think, of finding out what you think and feel about matters, and originality, frankly.

I think an advantage we had as even as late as the 1950’s was that one of one’s goals, at least for many of us, was to become cultured. The idea of culture as something that you could attain, you know, gradually, not overnight, was still there.

That has changed, I think. My impression of students nowadays, on both sides of the Atlantic now, is, rather, that this isn’t a goal, in a way. I’m not sure what they would understand by being cultured now. And I think globalization has something to do with that, and that, as it were, cannons of western literature and art and history and knowledge of the development of the west have now had to make way for a much wider picture. I think that it may make it more difficult to form ambitions.

a creature of habit. But it worries me how my impression of the young is that they don’t read newspapers or news online in the way that my contemporaries and I read serious newspapers. That is, if there was a long and critical article, you read it all. And I think there’s something about online, it creates a temptation to read a paragraph or two and think you’ve done that topic and then you move on to another. So a kind of knowledge in depth does suffer from that skimming.

One of the interesting consequence of the development of media communication is things get reflected back, you know, and almost immediately. I mean, take the arts and the fine arts. It seems to me the days when someone like Cézanne could develop as a painter because he had ideas...he was misunderstood. He was dismissed as a mad man, virtually.

But he plowed his own furrow and went on and on, and in the end, proved to be one of the geniuses of western painting.

I think now, when anything at all looks new it gets picked up and is shown round the world, (laughs), certainly around a particular society, almost immediately. In a way, I think, that can make originality, original achievements, more difficult.

I think it’s a question of people developing confidence and following their own instincts, following their curiosity.

And that’s where you could say social pressures in a more democratic society sometimes work against that. You know, England used to be noted, probably more then than now, for its eccentrics. And I don’t think that it was accidental, it was related to the structure of English society, to this more I mean, one of the aids to being cultured, I think, for a aristocratic social order which gave people a quite a strong hundred years or more, was daily reading of a serious newspaper. And one of the things that worries me now is sense of privacy and letting other people, you know, become people foresee the demise of the printed newspaper, really. themselves, even if, (laughs), it turns out to be, (laughs), Myself, I don’t look forward to breakfast without one. But rather unusual.

I’m not sure a screen will substitute, for me, at least, being

Art and History Larry Siedentop I think I’m visual. Visual pleasures are important to me. And so landscapes, I have a number of them. I like the way that landscapes give one a glimpse of another world. Maybe they are the secret to loosing claustrophobia and (laughs) wanting not to be pinned in by one world.

I lived in Oxford. My college…probably is the great Victorian college in Oxford. Built mostly in the 1870’s and in a very high Victorian style by an architect called Butterfield. I have a limited taste for Victoriana myself, very limited. And perhaps, to some extent, I was just reacting against the architectural and aesthetic setting I was living in. And so in London, or here in my rooms in college, I protected myself from Victoriana (laughs) by collecting things which were older for the most part. The deep connection with my life, my interests, my academic work, was just like dipping into the past and using it to understand the present, or at least compare it to the present. And so these paintings, things I’ve written and things I’ve read represent different dippings into the past, I suppose.

I don’t think there’s any more systematic connection than that.

I certainly have strong views about the history of painting.

I suppose my great hero is Poussin. And so I like certain

formalized late 17th century landscapes where you get an extraordinary mixture of representation and abstraction, a really amazing combination, which is why Cezanne, you know, learned so much from Poussin.

Francois Millet, who was kind of influenced by Poussin, I’d call him a protégé, active I think in the 1670’s and 80’s.

He didn’t live to be very old… I just think his notations for foliage and…the combinations of classical scenes and landscapes lighten me.

Or maybe it’s my Dutch sympathies as well, because, you know, the scholarship has suggested that the average Dutch family in the mid 17th century, I suppose the height of Dutch prosperity, the Golden Age, so called…might have 20 or 30 paintings. They would mostly be rather small, almost miniature paintings, but I can understand especially in a low country where space was at a premium the escapes [paintings] offered. [That] should not be underestimated, and perhaps, you know, there’s a touch of that by my collection. I don’t know.

“My collecting has been more intimate and more amateurish but…you learn…you learn from doing it.

The Science of Pigments Sue Smith

Architecture and private residences Matthew Vander Borgh

The concept we had in designing these pieces is that members of the Hope College community or other experts could share their views about how their specialty related to art, as represented by Mr Siedentop’s collection.

The concept we had in designing these pieces is that members of the Hope College community or other experts could share their views about how their specialty related to art, as represented by Mr Siedentop’s collection.

Our thought was to have an art historian write this piece. For example, this section might relate to the science of making paint, or some aspect of science as related to painting, and broaden out the view of what it meant to be an artist at this time.

Our thought was to ask Matthew Vander Borgh to write this piece.

This text might discuss the period and art of the time through the lens of architecture, how people used spaces, or how art making and architecture connected and informed each other. One idea we had for an illustration of this piece was of a house of the time with a view of where people lived and how art and decoration was used.

Or it might discuss what was involved in making a painting at the time, what it meant to be a painter, challenges and rewards, what a painter’s life would have been like. We were thinking the content of these sections would be largely at the direction of the contributing writers in creating a collaborative whole.

Exercilitiis accus molorum fuga. Sit audandit, volor magnis destiis earcipsa sum quia quia quis atur adit hiciiscia quiatibus, Ditia velesci nobit. Excerum doluptis non plit, toreperum atiorit, quist, qui aut dolorro restrum lita num et dit enis qui conseca turest odigeni hicimol laboreptatem volendi sit.DoeIcium autem harchil isit et latem. Ota idit volumetum voluptat faci consequi cus ant.Olorrum accullo repersperum faces porestisque perioris erovitetur minvell orerum rem idunt perciat ibusam quo mi, sunt.

Fugitias accum rendemp oribus accus doloriam quostint.

Tem quiatur mi, ad quam accae diciur apicae porum sequi odi sime nonectiusam qui reressum vendesequat praeptatis ullaudaecte dolore vitem quo volese volest evendaeptae pa nobis eum nisciasim quiae landita andi consequ isincimagnis sus eatiunt.

Quat ea est, temquam, nus, earcips aestiis magnis sumqui ratem enis aut dolorro to tessequas eum am, voluptus nonserf erupta dem lam res vel id eumquam rehenis aut libus, incto magnis

Exercilitiis accus molorum fuga. Sit audandit, volor magnis destiis earcipsa sum quia quia quis atur adit hiciiscia quiatibus, Ditia velesci nobit. Excerum doluptis non plit, toreperum atiorit, quist, qui aut dolorro restrum lita num et dit enis qui conseca turest odigeni hicimol laboreptatem volendi sit.DoeIcium autem harchil isit et latem. Ota idit volumetum voluptat faci consequi cus ant.Olorrum accullo repersperum faces porestisque perioris erovitetur minvell orerum rem idunt perciat ibusam quo mi, sunt.

Fugitias accum rendemp oribus accus doloriam quostint.

Tem quiatur mi, ad quam accae diciur apicae porum sequi odi sime nonectiusam qui reressum vendesequat praeptatis ullaudaecte dolore vitem quo volese volest evendaeptae pa nobis eum nisciasim quiae landita andi consequ isincimagnis sus eatiunt.

Quat ea est, temquam, nus, earcips aestiis magnis sumqui ratem enis aut dolorro to tessequas eum am, voluptus nonserf erupta dem lam res vel id eumquam rehenis aut libus, incto magnis voluptatibus reperrum ut deresti orrovitat lauda vel es ut atur, sed que ducil endis dendae adi volupta tectes delit hil eosaect otatiis et endem in parum culla prehent andenim aiorio blanis sunt aut ad que eribus sunt et exeria voluptia il im faceaturero maiossedi ullesti istibusam reped eos volor site vendae. Hilitio

“And yet being left to your own devices is really the necessary condition, I think, of finding out what you think and feel about matters.�

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In porisqua Mus eiuntenest, cusantet inci re voluptaquam, quaturior rem ame veritatur maiorIcienis doluptaquis ma ad eturem quae volo opta non cuptae

In porisqua Mus eiuntenest, cusantet inci re voluptaquam, quaturior rem ame veritatur maiorIcienis doluptaquis ma ad eturem quae volo opta non cuptae

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For the Contributors page, the thought would be to create a graphic that conveys the connections and intersections between the people involved in the collection, the museum, Hope, and this book.

Charles Mason

CONTRIBUTORS

Donald Battjes

Tom Wagner

Kate Folkert

Matt VanderBorgh

Mary Remenschneider

Larry Siedentop

Jim VanHeest

Location

Profession

Museum

Date

Degree

Alumni

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Vitis illore architat. In porisquatur solore entio tes nonsedionem et eum quam quaecti bearuptatium restiis duntincto iuscipid quatiam re nusErspernatem idessin ction se nemposs enimagnam, quam alitae veri bla nobitat fuga. Faccu llacita ipsamAquat quates eatur as ad qui consequi test, si ut quo iducit is et aut harciam, temquas et officti utet est, ut accaes excea necatur? Picimusciam quo tenduci litatet iuriatiis reritat emolorum faccae verero od maximet liquaer sperum fugiaturento dolupitibus eiciet fuga. Tem eni ad ex eum as quiatec estibus que prentot assus.

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