Kalenderblad voor januari tot en met maart 1923 1922

Leo Visser made this calendar page for January to March of 1923. I love how the black ink outlines the fantastical creatures, how they crawl and fly around the calendar grids of the months. Imagine Visser in his studio in the early 1920s, bending over this design. He is conjuring, with ink and color, a world of myth and symbol. Look at the way he renders the dragons, the careful detailing of their scales and claws. This is a calendar, a functional object, yet Visser transforms it into a portal. It is a space where the mundane meets the marvelous. I love the layering of images; dragons in the periphery, a central dragon, calendars as blocks, orange-brown background which bleeds into the brown frame. What you get is an ongoing conversation between line, shape and form. It shows us that images can embrace ambiguity, allowing multiple interpretations to thrive.