Vogel op een tak 1892 - 1951

Janus de Winter made this print of a bird on a branch. It's a linocut, so he would have carved into a sheet of linoleum to make it. The marks are really bold, aren't they? You can almost feel the gouge of the tool that's been used to carve out the image. The whiteness feels raw, like a flash of light. I like the way the bird perches on the branch, like he’s belting out a song! Look at the way the lines describe the feathers, all those short, sharp strokes. It's economical and expressive, kind of like what happens in a Cy Twombly, where the marks are all about movement and feeling, not just description. It's less about perfection and more about the gesture. It reminds me that art is never really finished, just abandoned at some point. It's all one big conversation, isn't it?