Kalenderblad januari met gekraagde roodstaart 1917

Curator: Let’s discuss "Kalenderblad januari met gekraagde roodstaart," a January calendar page featuring a collared redstart by Theo van Hoytema, created around 1917. It's crafted from ink, drawing, and print, residing at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: You know, it strikes me immediately as this quiet, observant moment suspended in time. A lone bird perched above the bleak midwinter... that sort of feeling, anyway. Did they see many birds like that there? Curator: Birds are central to Hoytema's wider artistic and political project, wouldn’t you agree? He was greatly influenced by social reformers, thinkers like Tolstoy and Kropotkin who focused on cooperation, anarchism and our place in the natural order of things. Here the bird is both an object of beauty but it’s also used as a gentle protest against industrialized and urbanized settings which isolate humans from nature and animal life. Editor: Right. The natural world asserting its presence even amidst our rigid structures – like, you know, calendars. But also... maybe the bird's song is a subtle call to break free from the confines of that calendar! Curator: Calendars were becoming much more pervasive at the time, they brought time management to an ever-larger demographic, which also of course required greater worker discipline. Hoytema also embraced the Art Nouveau and Symbolist movements, and both emphasized spiritual introspection in opposition to what they felt was a dehumanizing capitalist project. The geometric ornamentation feels less decorative than ideological. The bare branches could even represent barren aspects of human existence? Editor: Absolutely, and this resonates with a much wider critique of that era, looking for authenticity... A longing for connection, almost... it's certainly something that resonates today. The stark black ink against the stark beige...It feels raw, like a woodcut but much softer. What is your read on Hoytema's use of print? Curator: Yes, Hoytema printed hundreds of these artworks and calendar pages for his contemporaries to keep the values of freedom, love, equality and interconnectedness between all living things alive! The pen work creates an evocative tableau while imbuing the natural world with a unique sensitivity. Its visual immediacy feels both accessible and subtly disruptive. Editor: Well, considering it’s only January on this artwork I feel more emboldened now. Time is like a jail if you let it chain you... I feel free. Curator: Exactly. Now it's about examining our relationship to those rhythms and, where needed, trying to disrupt the rigidity imposed by the calendar!