Nu weer met moed, de toekomst tegemoet 1937

This plate, made in 1937 by De Porceleijne Fles, shows a landscape rendered in that classic blue glaze on white porcelain. What strikes me is how much information is conveyed with so little. It is almost like a drawing, but with all the added depth and richness of paint. The deep cobalt of the overhanging branches creates a sort of frame, drawing our eye down to the pale, almost spectral swan. Look at the reflections on the water, how they’re not just a mirror image, but a kind of abstracted dance of brushstrokes! It’s this tension between representation and pure mark-making that really grabs me. You can see in the gesture of the willow branches something of Hokusai’s prints, that same sensitivity to line and form. Art is always in conversation with itself, echoing and reinterpreting across time. This humble plate is a reminder that beauty can be found in the everyday, and that art, in all its forms, offers us a way to look to the future with hope and, as the plate says, with courage.