Staal met bedrukte zijde, dessin Blumenhorn 1911 - 1912

This ‘Staal met bedrukte zijde, dessin Blumenhorn’ was made by the Wiener Werkstätte, but we don't know exactly when, and it's printed on silk. Looking at this, I’m struck by how pattern-making is a process of working with these repeating elements, seeing how they relate, and letting new shapes emerge. The silk almost disappears, becoming this field of color and form. It has a life of its own, beyond just being a surface. The colors themselves feel like they're having a conversation - the purple against the green, the pink against the orange; bold, yet harmonious. It makes me think about Henri Matisse, who understood that color can be both decorative and deeply expressive. The empty frames invite you to imagine how else you might arrange them. It highlights the open-ended, experimental nature of artmaking.