Achterkant van vier pagina's voor: Stijn Streuvels, Reinaert de Vos, 1910 c. 1910

This is the back of four pages for Stijn Streuvels’ Reinaert de Vos, made around 1910 by Bernard Willem Wierink. It’s almost like a series of illuminated manuscript pages, but it’s printed. The overall impression is one of flatness, of a surface that doesn’t want to trick you into thinking it’s anything other than what it is: a sheet of paper with a design printed on it. The designs themselves feel like they could be stencils, or woodcuts. There’s a kind of graphic clarity to them. It’s the kind of image that makes you want to go back to basics and make your own stencils. Look closely at the top left quadrant. The cross-like design is so intricate, yet so simple. It’s like a puzzle, but one that doesn’t need solving. It just is. Wierink reminds me a little of Hilma af Klint; both artists are interested in the symbolic and the decorative, in making art that's both beautiful and meaningful. Ultimately, art is about having conversations, isn't it?