Metrage zwarte chenille-franje c. 1920

This is a length of black chenille fringe, made by Gustav Schnitzler, and now it resides in the Rijksmuseum. Isn’t it funny how something so… tactile can end up in a museum? I can imagine the artist, Schnitzler, sitting at his workbench, surrounded by spools of thread, meticulously knotting and looping, feeling the soft give of the chenille between his fingers. I wonder if he ever got lost in the rhythm of it, the way painters do with brushstrokes? Each strand is like a little gesture, a flick of the wrist, a decision made in the moment. And then there's the colour. Black, dense, almost swallowing the light. It’s like a Rothko, but in three dimensions! Maybe Schnitzler was thinking about the way shadows play, the way darkness can add depth and mystery. I like to think that he was having a conversation with painters. Because every artist is in dialogue with every other artist, across time, working through similar ideas, even in vastly different media.