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

This is Bernard Willem Wierink’s “Achterkant van vier pagina's voor: Stijn Streuvels, Reinaert de Vos” made in 1910, a preparatory drawing for a book. The paper is delicately imprinted in pale orange, across four imagined pages. Looking at this, I imagine Wierink planning the composition, designing ornamental borders and heraldic crests. I’m thinking about the relationship between image and text, how the picture plane can become a site of visual meaning-making in relation to the story. What part do images play in how we understand a story? He’s playing with symmetry, building each page around a central motif and creating a patterned rhythm with repeating elements, like musical notation. It makes me think about illuminated manuscripts and the rich history of artists and writers collaborating to create beautiful, and meaningful books. I wonder who else he looked at? And who looked at him? Artists are always in conversation with each other, picking up ideas, turning them over, and making them new. This piece speaks to that ongoing dialogue, where each gesture is a response to what came before and an invitation to what might follow.