Exploring the Phallic Universe through the Artistry of Dutch Surrealist Hans Kanters

The self-taught Dutch artist Hans Kanters (1947) has been drawing ever since he was a child. The paint box he got from his father opened new perspectives, and after that drawing became second nature to him. His urge to draw is accompanied by the interest and attention he devotes to the technical potentials of what he calls his “craft”.

Mutations

Kanters’ work is difficult to describe. Anyone who wants to understand the painted world of Kanters will have to move between the extras, mutations and metaphors. He shows that nothing is impossible in painting, his creatures take all possible forms that arise from the painter’s mind.

Inquisitiveness and Hunger

Kanters did not attend an official art academy, but this never bothered him. He more than compensated for this lack by his inquisitiveness and hunger to learn when it came to the numerous ɱaпifestations of art available in the 1950s and 60s via books and museums in the Netherlands as abroad.

Technical Mastery

It was with the greatest of ease that he then mastered the art of painting. In the course of ᴛι̇ɱe, his excessive self-discipline has earned him technical mastery of the very highest sort. The immense interest and care devoted to the technical side of painting were instrumental in determining the total quality of his work.

Erotic Motifs

Although Kanter’s surrealist universe is rich with all kinds of motifs and displays the obscure, the absurd, the trivial, the oppressed, the lunatic, the confused, the dreamed and the poetic side of the huɱaп soul, we’ll zoom in (off course) on the erotic motifs of his earlier work.

Melle

In his early twenties, Kanters became acquainted with the Dutch

One of my personal favorite themes within shunga is that of the depiction of Westerners (maybe because I am a Dutchɱaп myself). The former residents of Japan (in particular those of Nagasaki) including artists could..

artist Melle*. The erotic implications in Melle’s work were evident, and since Kanters admired his enigmatic universe with its erotic allusions he started to examine them himself too.

Provocations

While painting, Kanters discovered the shapes the genitals could assume, the comical and symbolic as well as the erotic ones. Upright or reclining, they willingly pose for him, assuming this shape and that, someᴛι̇ɱes as critical elements, mockery, derision, impotence someᴛι̇ɱes as provocations.

‘The Toadstool‘

Furtive Grin

In their variety, these genital symbols become the direct or indirect object in the story, with a furtive grin or grotesque

We have (finally) obtained this great shunga print that is generally considered to be the most gruesome design within the genre. In this rather complex fold-out piece ( shikake-e ) from Kunisada ‘s acclaimed ‘ Tales..

smirk fortunately peeking round the corner now and then, reducing the “weight” of the parts.

Satanic or Mischievous

They can also be dominant at ᴛι̇ɱes, standing square in the limelight, voracious or extravagant, satanic or mischievous, atrocious or sorrowful. A complete masquerade or carnaval of the genders can be discerned in the early work, with symbolic references that, unlike those of the more melancholy Melle, infused with irony, parody and banter. And are at the same ᴛι̇ɱe connected through a panorama of grotesque detail with a modern-life feeling.

Lithograph

Huɱaп Soul

This way, Kanters turns inside out the obscure, the absurd, the trivial, the oppressed, the lunatic, the confused, the dreamed and the poetic sides of the huɱaп soul.