Vingerdoek met vissen c. 1900 - 1925

This "Vingerdoek met vissen" or finger towel with fish, was made by Chris Lebeau, but at an unknown date, and it's at the Rijksmuseum now. It's kind of hard to see the image because the image is the same colour as the background. The cloth looks like it's almost all one colour, a bleached out white, like a memory that's fading. But then, as your eyes adjust, you see the fish appear, swimming in an Escher-like world where nothing is quite what it seems. I see the negative space as much as the image itself, and the fish create a frame for the middle part. It's almost meditative, like staring at clouds and finding shapes in them. I find this piece really interesting because it shows how art isn't just about what you put on the canvas, or in this case the cloth, but also about what you leave out, and how the viewer completes the picture. It reminds me a little of Hilma af Klint’s work, not in style, but in its quiet, almost spiritual quality. Like both were searching for something beyond the everyday, using art as a way to get there.