Kalenderblad maart met bloemen before 1905

This is Anna Sipkema's 'Kalenderblad maart met bloemen', or 'Calendar Sheet March with Flowers', created as a lithograph at the turn of the century. Look at the way the red flowers and green foliage intertwine and spiral around the grey calendar grid. I imagine Anna carefully tracing and layering each element, building the composition like a delicate dance between order and nature. She probably liked Japanese prints. There's something almost meditative about the repetition of forms, each flower rendered with such precision and care. The colors are muted, earthy, but they're all working so well together and it pops off the neutral paper. I wonder if she thought about what it was like to have it hanging, in a domestic space, something functional made beautiful. It reminds me a little of Hilma af Klint and her interest in the spiritual in everyday life, the unseen forces that surround us. Like how so many artists, across time and space, keep having a conversation with each other. A lineage of mark-making and meaning-making.