{"id":184356,"date":"2025-12-16T15:59:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T14:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=184356"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:28:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:28:00","slug":"ellen-van-schoten-laat-stadsgezichten-vakwerkhuizen-en-kathedralen-tot-leven-komen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2025\/12\/16\/ellen-van-schoten-laat-stadsgezichten-vakwerkhuizen-en-kathedralen-tot-leven-komen\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellen van Schoten brings cityscapes, half-timbered houses and cathedrals to life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellen van Schoten, vice-chair of the Executive Board, has been drawing for almost her entire life. This month, De jongen die zijn stem verloor <\/em>was released, a book in which she takes readers on a quest through Delft, Wales and England in more than 130 illustrations.<\/p>\n

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In the summer of 2024, Ellen van Schoten is sketching in her notebook on the coast of Tynemouth, in Northeast England, where the Tyne flows into the North Sea and the ferry from IJmuiden passes the ruins of a Benedictine priory on its way into Newcastle. Two boys are sitting on a bench. They\u2019re eating ice cream and strike up a conversation with her, intrigued by her drawing of the coastline.<\/p>\n\t

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With 6,422 staff and 31,473 students, it\u2019s impossible to know everyone at the university. But what do these people do once they step off campus? In this end-of-year series, EM makes the connection with six remarkable stories about what students and staff do in their spare time.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

By that moment, Executive Board vice-chair Van Schoten has been drawing for many years. From the age of 13 to 18 she took classes at the drawing society Debutade in Hoorn, which has been around since 1866. \u201cThat gave me a solid technical foundation.\u201d It always remained a hobby though, until that conversation with the two young tourists on the English coast. \u201cThey looked at the sketch and started asking all sorts of questions. Do you have a website? Are you on Instagram? Where can we buy your work?\u201d<\/p>\n

That encounter got her thinking and led to her decision to take her drawing more seriously and share her work with the world. Now, a year and a half later, her book De jongen die zijn stem verloor <\/em>(\u2018 The boy who lost his voice\u2019) is for sale in bookshops, featuring more than 130 of her drawings \u2013 in pencil and ink \u2013 and a story she wrote herself.<\/p>\n

Cityscapes and cathedrals<\/h2>

In the book, 11-year-old Willem sets out to find his voice. Willem loves to sing \u2013 often and beautifully \u2013 until one day he suddenly can\u2019t sing anymore. His quest takes him from Delft, where Van Schoten has lived since taking up her job in Rotterdam, to England and Wales, passing the cityscapes, half-timbered houses and cathedrals that Van Schoten sketched on location: from the leaning tower of the Oude Jan and the back of the Hugo de Groot statue in Delft, past the monumental Newcastle Castle and York Minster, to the fishing boats off the Welsh coast in Tenby.<\/p>\n

The drawings came first, the story followed. She made the drawings on her travels to England \u2013 the country she fell in love with at the age of 19. She always draws outdoors: on a caf\u00e9 terrace, on a bench, and sometimes even sitting on the ground. A drawing takes her an hour and a half to two hours to complete, and sometimes she makes three or four in a day. \u201cEven in winter, as long as it\u2019s dry.\u201d This Christmas holiday, she\u2019s off to Bath.<\/p>\n

Van Schoten\u2019s cityscapes are devoid of people. Occasionally, a drawing will feature a detail hinting at everyday life: a shop sign, a power cable, a protruding antenna or a wonky portable loo. \u201cI want nothing to distract from the subject. My work is realistic and restrained \u2013 I like clear lines. In architecture, the strength of the line comes through most powerfully when you maintain that restraint.\u201d The ink drawings of Anton Pieck are a major source of inspiration.<\/p>\n

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Architecture is like music<\/h2>

Still, the cityscapes in her drawings are anything but static \u2013 no ruler is involved. \u201cI draw by hand, and organic lines bring the buildings to life.\u201d In the story, the buildings seem to sing, as if trying to tell Willem something. She herself doesn\u2019t experience them quite as intensely as her protagonist. \u201cI don\u2019t hear music or anything like that when I walk through a city\u201d, Van Schoten laughs. \u201cBut I do experience a great sense of beauty, for example when I walk through the centre of Delft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018I do experience a great sense of beauty, for example when I walk through the centre of Delft\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

She sees parallels between architecture and music: \u201cThey both have something mathematical \u2013 the structure of a musical composition and the design of a building. But good music rises above the structure, just like good architecture.\u201d She refers to a quote by Goethe, who said that music is liquid architecture, and architecture frozen music. \u201cTo me, they\u2019re connected. I enjoy the structure of a musical piece just as much as I enjoy beautiful architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singing voice<\/h2>

Just as in the story, music is a common thread through Van Schoten\u2019s life. As a child, she sang in church choir De Lichtzangertjes<\/em> and learned to play the violin. Her mother, who inherited a love of music from the church, was an amateur violinist and encouraged her to take music lessons. \u201cI\u2019m grateful to her for that.\u201d Her father, who passed away when she was ten, was passionate about opera. \u201cI loved listening along when he put on those LPs.\u201d She still plays the violin and has since learned to play the piano as well.<\/p>\n

Van Schoten still sings, too. That\u2019s how she ended up in North England\u2019s cathedrals in the summer of 2024. \u201cEvery cathedral in England has its own choir, but they take time off in summer. I joined the choirs that fill in during those weeks. We sang the repertoire of an Evensong \u2013 an evening church service that\u2019s largely sung.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea for the story in the book came to her while having coffee with her neighbour. \u201cShe\u2019s a fan of German literature and told me about a book, Die Zauberinnen<\/em> by Jean Starobinski, in which singers are described as sorcerers, because they can conjure up all sorts of emotions and transport you to another world with their voice. That got me thinking \u2013 what exactly is a singing voice? And I think it\u2019s more than just an instrument that produces sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Anchor<\/h2>

Though the story is written for all ages, it occasionally touches on heavier themes. Willem\u2019s quest for his voice at times feels like an existential search. In the world around him \u2013 rowing students, people walking along the canal \u2013 Willem sees that life goes on without a voice. For Willem, his voice is an anchor for his identity. \u201cThe book is also about loss. I tried to imagine what it\u2019s like to lose something so important. Music matters deeply to me. What if it were suddenly gone?\u201d<\/p>\n

Would Van Schoten go on a similar quest herself? \u201cI think I would, because I\u2019d know exactly what I was missing.\u201d Drawing and music are an anchor for her. \u201cNot for my identity, but definitely something that always brings me back to myself.\u201d She appreciates the contrast with her demanding job. \u201cWhat I like is that in my job I use my head, and this I do with my hands \u2013 a different part of the brain. And the nice thing about singing is that it\u2019s very physical, which I enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming to life<\/h2>\n\t
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Protagonist Willem is named after Van Schoten\u2019s grandfather. \u201cI never met him, and as far as I know he couldn\u2019t sing.\u201d Still, she tried to make Willem resemble her grandfather. \u201cI only had photos of him in his twenties. But I tried to capture his face \u2013 he had this full head of hair in his twenties.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the male characters in the book are named after family members. An emeritus professor in the story is called Freek, just like Van Schoten\u2019s father. \u201cI based the drawing on his photo.\u201d Priest Andries, who helps Willem on his journey, is named after Van Schoten\u2019s uncle. \u201cI liked the idea of bringing them back. It\u2019s as if they come to life again \u2013 in a very different life from the one they had.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the book, Van Schoten takes the reader along on Willem\u2019s journey. Without revealing whether or how Willem finds his voice: \u201cI didn\u2019t want an obvious ending. I don\u2019t like boring stories or conclusions that feel like a foregone conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, there might be a second volume, Van Schoten cautiously admits. \u201cI\u2019d really like that. But it would have to be set in Florence \u2013 I\u2019ve made some beautiful drawings there.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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Ellen van Schoten<\/strong> (59) has been vice-chair of the Executive Board since January 2021 and is responsible for the university\u2019s operations. She earned a PhD on the audit and control of financial derivatives at non-financial institutions. Before that, she worked at PwC, the Netherlands Court of Audit and the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets. She lives in Delft.
\nShe has been drawing since childhood. Since the summer of 2024, she has taken a more professional approach to her art.
\nDe jongen die zijn stem verloor <\/em>(graphic novel, 176 p. | ISBN: 978-94-91835-62-9 | Price: 24.50 euros | publisher: Studio Kers) has been available in bookshops since 1 December and can also be ordered via her website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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