The Abduction of Europe

A work by Koenraad Tinel: The Abduction of Europe, 2007

Beelthuuwertekenaar Koenraad Tinel (1934 Ghent) literally stood as a child on the ruins of Europe. At the end of WWII, he fled as a ten-year-old together with his parents from Belgium to Germany. It became a journey full of horror and deprivation, to a village near the Czech border. Two years later, the family fled again, this time from the Russian zone, in the opposite direction. They were captured by the Americans and finally transported back to Belgium.

In the post-war years, Koenraad Tinel first completed his piano studies and then studied visual arts at La Cambre (ENSAV) in Brussels.

From that experience, the artist, now over 70 years old, forged, hammered, and shaped a lifetime later, the monumental sculpture "The Abduction of Europe". It expresses his hope for a united Europe. Unlike in the art historical tradition, Europe looks straight ahead, full of confidence, proud and enchanting. An emblem that radiates the values of Europe, aware that it has always started from the outside.

In Greek mythology, Europa is the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor and the North African Telephassa. She plays with her friends on the beach. The Greek god Zeus sees her and is blinded by her beauty. He takes the form of a powerful bull and seduces the princess to climb onto his back. Then he swims away with her to Crete. There he takes on his divine form again, assaults the abducted princess, and makes her pregnant. She becomes the matriarch of the Minoan dynasty.

Thus, according to the ancient Greeks, Western civilization begins.

Pascal Brackman