Anne Zernike voert de kippen 1917

Jan Mankes made this etching, ‘Anne Zernike voert de kippen’ with ink on paper. I’m thinking about Mankes, scratching at the plate, gently coaxing the image into being. What’s so striking is the intimacy; he pictures Anne surrounded by busy chickens in a garden, sunflowers looking on like onlookers. I can imagine Mankes's attention to detail, a labor of love almost. I can imagine him, day after day, carefully building up the tonal variation, giving texture to the woman’s dress and the plumage of the birds. Look how the winding path and the woman’s gaze draws you into the landscape, a quiet pastoral scene. It makes me think of other artists like Paula Modersohn-Becker, capturing the quiet moments of daily life. There's a tenderness and a close attention to the everyday that feels radical. It’s as if Mankes whispers a secret about the beauty of simple things. Painting, like life, keeps evolving. One image builds on another, and it’s this conversation across time that keeps everything so alive.