76 In search of Michiel de Ruyter

The first chapter of the Graphic Story about Iligh will be about the Michiel de Ruyter connection. Michiel de Ruyter was born in 1607 and died in 1676 during a sea battle against the French. He hailed from the town of Vlissingen on the island of Walcheren in the Province of Zeeland. Zeeland was in the 17th century an independent region of small but rich and powerful islands within the Dutch Republic of Seven Provinces. Michiel de Ruyter is an iconic hero of the seas. His sailors gave him the honorary title of ‘Bestevaer’ (grandfather). The latest biography about him by Ronald Prudhomme van Reine was called ‘De rechter hand van Nederland’ (The right hand of the Netherlands) and a movie about his exploits during the wars with England was titled ‘Admiral’. At primary school I learned the song ‘In een blauwgeruite kiel’ (In a blue tartan shirt) about him as a youth dreaming about going to sea while working on a ropewalk. Lately his heroic status has been questioned and to have an interest in him is considered dubious and ‘not done’. He is accused of facilitating the slave trade. The Dutch had taken over the cross-ocean trade from the Portuguese and made it more ‘efficient’ and thus more vicious and dehumanizing. As with all iconic figures a lot of myths were attached to him and he had become more like an institution than a human being. Time to get a ‘feel’ for this man and to make drawings ‘in situ’ for the graphic story. I took the train to Vlissingen. It was a beautiful sunny day when I set out to the railway station only to find out that the scheduled direct train to Vlissingen had been cancelled. Time enough to sit down and do some serious sketching of the monumental Amsterdam Central Station.