Ontwerp voor een boekillustratie 1913 - 1970

This book illustration design was created by Hans Borrebach, using monochromatic paint. The inky blackness feels like the beginning of a story – a night scene perhaps, or an abstract composition. It's so dark, that I find myself squinting to discern the shapes within. It's only by looking closely that you start to make out the forms, the texture, the material. There's a hint of something organic in the lower section of the illustration - is it landscape, figures, or something else entirely? It’s this interplay between the visible and the obscured that makes it so compelling. Borrebach's design reminds me of Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings, where the longer you look, the more they reveal. It highlights how art embraces ambiguity, inviting multiple interpretations. Is it a beginning, or an end? A figure, or a landscape? It is up to us to make our own mind.