Het nieuwe liedje 1880 - 1932

Henri van der Stok made this print, "Het nieuwe liedje", which translates as 'the new song', sometime around the turn of the century with a wood block. I can imagine him carving away at the block, thinking about old songs and new songs. What's he thinking about? The composition is so simple. A flute player, seated. A listener, also seated, turned away from us. Is that a dog? Maybe a wolf. The artist is trying to figure out how to distill a scene down to its bare essence and what it would mean to carve away the world. The lines are all so decisive, so certain. The foliage, the figures, the animals. It's so evocative. It makes me want to pick up my own tools and start carving away at the world, too. Thinking about how we all riff off each other, passing ideas around, like a new song.