De oude aardewerkfabriek 'Regout' te Maastricht 1900 - 1930

Herman Heijenbrock painted this factory scene, "De oude aardewerkfabriek 'Regout' te Maastricht," with a palette of muted blues, greys and browns. It's like he's building up the image from the inside out, through layers of tone, rather than describing the scene from the outside. I'm drawn to the way the light catches on the shelves of pottery to the right of the image, and how the edges of things seem to dissolve in the gloom. It's like a memory, or a half-remembered dream. You can almost smell the clay and hear the clatter of the factory, yet the scene remains still and silent. The artist's touch is so delicate, it's as if he's trying to capture the very essence of the place. This reminds me of Whistler's atmospheric paintings of London. There's a similar sense of poetry and melancholy, a feeling that beauty can be found even in the most ordinary of places. It makes you think about art as an ongoing conversation, a way of seeing and feeling that evolves over time. There's always room for more than one story!