Meticulous and Desperate

On May 5, 2002, a conversation was broadcasted by the Dutch interviewer Wim Kayzer and three Dutch artists: the choreographer and writer Rudi van Dantzig (then 68), the songwriter and poet Willem Wilmink (then 65) and the illustrator-storyteller Marten Toonder (then 90). Three artists who would leave behind a magnificent legacy in terms of imagination, poetry and dance. But also three modest muses: they did not often and certainly not loudly beat the drum, while their work gave every reason to do so. Wim Kayzer had asked them to draw up a provisional testament. A testament about love, suffering, sexuality, the society in which they grew old, their work, their dreams, their youth, the Second World War, liberation, death and God.

To his guests – artists, scientists, writers, philosophers and musicians – Wim Kayzer in Of Beauty and Consolation asks the philosophical question: What makes this life worth living?