Tamme dieren 1903 - 1919

Arie Willem Segboer's 'Tamme dieren' looks like a page from a children's book, all those farm animals and pets neatly presented in their own little squares. I imagine Arie, maybe with kids underfoot, carefully rendering each creature, trying to capture the essence of a horse's quiet strength or the bossy strut of a rooster. It’s a lithograph, so there's this interesting tension between the precise lines and the soft, almost watercolor-like hues. Look at the dog jumping into the water barrel! You can almost feel the splash. It reminds me of folk art and those sweet, slightly off-kilter portraits where the artist is more interested in the spirit of the thing than perfect realism. What Arie and other painters seem to be constantly asking is, how can we make this two-dimensional plane come alive? How can we show the joy of a splashing dog?