Flower Market Possibly 1917

Theo Colenbrander made this flower market perhaps with watercolour and ink and a hell of a lot of patience! I can imagine him leaning over a table, carefully outlining these fantastic blooms. It feels like an obsessive act of love. The palette is warm and inviting, with reds, yellows, and oranges dominating, and the composition is a joyful explosion of colour. The outlines feel like a way of organising, containing, or even controlling the organic matter that he has so affectionately rendered. What's interesting is how the forms are both representational and totally abstract. Do these lines and blobs and shapes become a system, a language? It makes me think of Hilma af Klint or even some of the later Pattern and Decoration artists. The history of painting is one of call and response, artists building on what came before, and pushing things further. Ultimately, it’s the artist’s job to create a space for contemplation, so you can enter in and let your imagination run wild.