ABOUT

H U B E R C K  A R T

‘Diving deep into detail.’

Hubert Christiaan (Bert) Knispel

Painter

I have been painting and drawing from an early age. Since I was six years old there has been a drive to visualize things. Where it comes from, I don’t know, maybe it’s somewhere in the genes. In 1575 there was already a painter Jaques Willemsz Knispel living in Antwerp, a member of the Guild of Saint Luke and born in 1529 in Prague.

It is not surprising that he came from Prague, a small village in the Czech Republic, 100 km west of Vienna, bears the name Knispel. My cradle was in Amsterdam. There I attended several art schools and had a successful career in advertising. Although I also work in an impressionistic style, I feel first and foremost a fine painter.

Contemporary Realism

You could call my painting style Contemporary Realism. Making a realistic painting involves a lot of work. The laws of perspective, form and structure must always be respected. It’s a challenge every time to conquer every inch of the canvases and panels down to the smallest detail, which may have something to do with my zodiac sign Virgo. After all, they are known for always being busy with details. Anyway ’the devil is in the details’ and I know that all too well. You can work endlessly in a detail and get lost also, because you can enlarge it endlessly. Hence the headline above this piece of text.  Nevertheless, the spontaneity of a painting must be preserved and that is not always easy.

Composition, surface division and the incidence of light play an important role. I also try to bring emotion into my work or a simple idea plays the leading role.

The technique in which I make the paintings is a so-called glazing technique. This means that layer upon layer is applied to an underpainting. The top layers are usually transparent and give depth to the painting. In any case, I try to achieve the highest possible quality, whether I succeed in this I leave to others to judge.Anyway, I have a lot of fun making it myself.

 Mermaid of Holland.

For more than 26 years I’ve been working on a story about a mermaid who would have been captured six hundred years ago. If you want to know more about this, take a look at www.artimare.com