Vrouw met bloemen in haar hand 1915 - 1940

Curator: Looking at this intriguing woodcut, “Vrouw met bloemen in haar hand,” or “Woman with Flowers in her Hand,” created sometime between 1915 and 1940 by Tinus van Doorn, now held in the Rijksmuseum, one immediately notes its expressionistic tendencies. Editor: Expressionistic is the word. It hits you like a visual poem – intense black and white contrasts. The woman’s face… almost mask-like. Stark beauty, a bit haunted, holding those wilting flowers. A powerful image, yet there’s a melancholy hiding just beneath the surface, don't you think? Curator: Absolutely. That melancholic undertone, I suspect, comes from the woodcut medium itself. Each line, deeply etched, carries an emotional weight, intensified through those dramatic contrasts. Look at the geometric abstraction within the natural elements; even the house and the tree gain a stark quality that points to a broader feeling, an awareness, if you will. The flowers she holds might symbolize mortality and fleeting beauty, but on the other hand it is about the circle of life and constant reawakening. Editor: Precisely! And there’s a tension too between this sense of decay, this almost unbearable feeling that this woman's portrait creates and yet her gaze—direct and unwavering, refusing to succumb. See the way the flower almost covers part of the mouth! This positioning of flowers to a part of a person’s face indicates the position she wants to keep quiet, or perhaps cannot. Curator: Yes! The way van Doorn used geometric abstraction alongside these traditional motifs – a house, trees – also invokes a longing for a simpler life. The Expressionists sought to express inner emotion through these abstracted external symbols. Her eyes are particularly intriguing; one nearly closed and one fully open! What message do we obtain? Editor: Perhaps the dichotomy that rests inside each of us – hope, alongside fear! Her portrait gives rise to inner thoughts of the power in our fleeting human condition. Curator: I concur; Van Doorn creates such a memorable face by the end. Editor: Truly an image that lingers, making you want to look again…and again.