Kalenderblad november met bonte kraai 1915

This is Theo van Hoytema’s ‘Kalenderblad november met bonte kraai’ at the Rijksmuseum, a calendar page made with lithography. I am thinking about him making this and what the exchange was like. Van Hoytema gives us an image that feels a little like folk art. He was an artist who really loved birds, and this calendar page makes me think about how images come into being. It's rendered in muted browns, and the artist seems to want to get the essence of the crow in various poses, and the way they stand around at the end of the year. I think the way artists look at each other's work is an ongoing conversation. An exchange. You look at something, and it inspires your own thing; somebody looks at your work, and it inspires their work. It's like a back and forth through time.