Twaalf vogelkoppen 1875

Floris Verster sketched these twelve bird heads with graphite on paper; an ornithological study, one might say. Look closer, however, and one detects a primal curiosity about these creatures whose symbolism has taken flight across history. Consider the owl, absent here, yet ever-present in the human psyche as an emblem of wisdom, or a foreboding of death, a duality stretching from ancient Greece to modern lore. Here, the variety of beaks – sharp, curved, probing – evoke a deeper ancestral memory of avian forms as messengers, predators, symbols of freedom or entrapment. The attentive gaze of these birds connects us to the ancient augurs, diviners who read the future in the flight patterns of birds. It resurfaces, evolves, and takes on new meanings in different historical contexts. The echo of the birdsong, and its evolution across cultures, lingers in the collective unconscious.