Prentbriefkaart aan Ab Bogtman before 1937

This card, sent by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst to Ab Bogtman, captures a scene from the Queen Mathilda Tapestry. The flat, simplified figures of the soldiers and horses look like they’ve been carefully placed, but also as though the artist wanted to convey a sense of movement and urgency. I imagine Roland Holst studying the original tapestry, thinking about how to translate its monumentality into a small, intimate card. Maybe he was thinking about the colors, how they create a rhythm across the surface, and how to capture that feeling in his own way. There's a funny contrast between the violence of the battle, captured in a limited palette, and the ornamental quality of the composition. I am reminded of other artists, across time, like Elizabeth Murray or Philip Guston, thinking through the lessons of history and making something new. Artists are always in conversation, taking notes from one another, building on the past, and remixing it into something completely their own.