Kalenderblad voor juni 1934 met vliegende reigers 1933

This is “Kalenderblad voor juni 1934 met vliegende reigers” which roughly translates to “Calendar sheet for June 1934 with flying herons”, made by G.H. Bretschneider. It's a monochrome work, carved with great clarity using the technique of woodcutting. I wonder what the artist was thinking about as they made this image, maybe they were watching birds on a spring day and felt so happy that they had to commemorate it in a print! Look how Bretschneider contrasted textures – see the vertical striations, like reeds, versus the dynamic sweeping cuts creating a gust of wind. The patterns are quite expressionistic, yet remain anchored in a calm, almost stoic depiction of birds in flight. What do you think, are they running away or arriving? It reminds me a bit of other artists like Christian Rohlfs and Max Pechstein, who also played with graphic black and white to render natural subjects with strong, raw emotion. Art is a kind of conversation across time, where one artist picks up where another leaves off, forever changing and remixing. It's always June somewhere, and the herons keep flying.