Kalenderblad mei met vliegende vogel 1917

Theo van Hoytema created this calendar page for the month of May, featuring a flying bird, in pen, ink, or maybe charcoal. I can imagine van Hoytema, hunched over this drawing, feeling like he was in conversation with nature. The bird is so delicately rendered with these wispy lines, a flurry of motion and life! Look how its wings seem to almost flutter off the page. It's like he’s trying to capture the ephemeral quality of a fleeting moment. The bird has this look about it, like it’s trying to figure something out, or is about to let out a mating call. I love the naivety. It makes me think of other artists like Alfred Jarry who created art outside of the conventional. It's an ongoing exchange of ideas, inspiring one another’s creativity across time, and showing the way for ambiguity and uncertainty. In the end, we can interpret it in multiple ways.