Struikgewas met hagedis en nachtvlinder 1892 - 1951

Janus de Winter created this woodcut, "Struikgewas met hagedis en nachtvlinder," where the entire process feels laid bare. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving through the block, carving out each blade of grass. The black and white contrast gives it a stark, graphic quality, but it’s the textures that really grab you. Look closely, and you’ll see how the artist used different marks to describe the leaves, the flowers, and the lizard. The leaves on the left have a light, airy feel, which contrasts with the snake-like body of the lizard on the right. The vertical marks in the background are almost oppressive in the way they crowd the scene. De Winter’s contemporary, M.C. Escher, also worked with woodcuts and similar themes, but where Escher sought to create impossible realities, De Winter seems to be trying to capture the strangeness of nature itself. It feels chaotic, wild, and untamed. In art, sometimes the messier, the better, right?