Sculptures

Bust of Van der Waals 1999

Location: Cascade, floor 1 

The subject of this bust is the great physicist Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837-1923), in a rendering that is oriented on the past. For this is how, in previous centuries, great men or women used to be cast in bronze for posterity. Should the artist reproduce the outward appearance of the man, or can the bust also manifest the power of the man’s mind? How does one bring a man to life in bronze that one has never met in the flesh? Such commissions are by no means the easiest for artists, but Hegeman (1945) has certainly succeeded in his version.
The student faculty association Van der Waals presented the bust in 2000 to the Department upon the opening of the new building Cascade.

See also: Vubis database