Servet met dessin haantjes 1888 - 1945

This is Chris Lebeau’s napkin with a rooster design; its date and exact medium escape us for now, but let's dive in anyway. The limited palette, maybe just white on white, pushes the design to the forefront and highlights process. Focus on one rooster motif: see how its tail feathers become the frame for the next rooster's head? It's a game of repetition and variation, a dance between figure and ground, typical of Art Nouveau, where the natural world gets a stylized twist. It's as though Lebeau is sketching in thread, building up the image line by line. And the way the roosters almost merge into the background reminds me of the way an Agnes Martin painting almost disappears into the wall. Ultimately, it’s about seeing, and how art can transform the mundane into something pretty special. It is a reminder that beauty can be found in the simplest of things, even in something as everyday as a napkin.