De storm breekt los after 1914

This round earthenware plate painted by De Porceleijne Fles shows a traditional Dutch scene in blue on white. Imagine the painter carefully applying the blue pigment to the white surface, building up the scene of a windmill and a sailboat on the water, and a stormy sky, all framed by a decorative leaf pattern. I feel for the artist, channeling a world in flux, a landscape in motion. The paint, delicate yet purposeful, captures a slice of life, a world in microcosm. The date 1 August 1914 appears on the plate, can you imagine what they were thinking when they made it? You can see echoes of other landscape painters such as Jacob van Ruisdael but rendered in a more simplified and naive style. Artists are always in conversation with each other, consciously or unconsciously. Like memories, the scene isn't fixed or definitive. Perhaps there are multiple interpretations of the storm, the windmill, and the sailboat.