Ontwerp voor tekst Eerste Bedrijf met ornamenten 1908 - 1937

This is a design for a text, "Eerste Bedrijf met ornamenten," made with some sort of pen and ink by Bernard Willem Wierink, though the date is unknown. I love how the piece seems to embrace a kind of playful amateurism, right? Like the wonky circles up top and the uneven lettering. Looking closely, you can see the gold ink is a bit transparent, letting the texture of the paper peek through. The blue is more opaque, creating a nice contrast. See how the artist used tiny, repetitive strokes to fill in the shapes? It's almost meditative, like a form of drawing that’s also a kind of writing. That repetition reminds me that artmaking is so often about process, about the act of doing. This piece makes me think of Hilma af Klint, another artist who combined text and image in a spiritual, almost mystical way. It's a reminder that art is always in conversation, echoing and transforming ideas across time. And that ambiguity is not a weakness, but a strength.