Paradijsvogels 1903 - 1932

Adriaan van 't Hoff made this lithograph of two birds of paradise sometime before 1939. It's all in shades of grey, built up with layers and layers of marks. I love to imagine the artist at work, his hand moving back and forth, coaxing these forms into being, bit by bit. I'm feeling the weight of that black ink. He must have been thinking about light and shadow, how to make these creatures almost glow against the dark background. Look how the lithographic crayon flows across the tails, suggesting movement and texture, almost like water. It reminds me a little of Odilon Redon's charcoal drawings—that same moody, dreamlike quality. I’m thinking about how artists are always in conversation with each other, borrowing and building upon ideas across time. Painting or printmaking—it’s all just different ways of seeing and feeling. What matters is that something comes alive through the making. Something that speaks to us, even now.