Kager 1913

Peter Ilsted made this print, ‘Kager’, sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. It’s an image of cakes, but it's also an image *about* image-making, using dark tones to offset the light, and making the whole thing feel a little bit like a dream. Up close, you can see it’s all about the surface. It's not just a smooth illusion. There’s a real sense of touch here, like the artist was feeling his way through the darkness with different tools to build the texture of each pastry. Look at the cream filled roll at the front. The soft blurring around the edges could be paint, or crayon, but it’s something in-between. Ilsted, who was Danish, clearly knew his stuff, and in the way he deals with light and shadow, he reminds me of Bonnard, a great French painter. In both their works, you get this sense of art being a conversation, a back-and-forth between the artist and the world. A sweet conversation.