Algemeen Handelsblad Possibly 1944

This newspaper, Algemeen Handelsblad, was printed in 1944. Imagine the ink, pressed onto the page, row after row of tiny letters reporting from the front lines. You can almost see the typesetter hunched over their work. What were they thinking as they composed these lines? The weight of each word—the ‘stellingsoorlog in het Westen’—the war of positions in the West. It’s heavy, like a dark impasto. I wonder about the surface quality of each column. Are the inky areas dense and textured, or more like thin washes, barely clinging to the page? Look closely, and you’ll see the way each gesture communicates the weight of the moment, the urgency and uncertainty of wartime. This newspaper reminds me of other artists working with found materials, like Kurt Schwitters. Artists are always responding to each other, riffing on each other's ideas across time, inspiring new acts of creation. Painting, like the printing of a newspaper, is a form of expression that embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple readings of meaning.