Slakken en kikkers 1884 - 1935

Maurits van der Valk made this artwork called Slakken en kikkers – that’s Snails and Frogs in Dutch. It’s a print in blue ink, and I’m imagining the artist, Van der Valk, hunched over a plate, carefully etching the image into the metal. Look at the way the shells are rendered! Those swirling lines create a sense of depth and texture, like you could reach out and feel the coolness of the shells. And that little frog! It’s like a dark punctuation mark in the composition. I wonder what Van der Valk was thinking about when he made this. Was he interested in the delicate balance of nature, the small dramas that unfold in a pond? The piece reminds me of the work of other artists who explored the natural world like Ernst Haeckel, who was also interested in patterns and repetitions of natural forms. Artists are always looking at each other, riffing on each other's ideas, finding new ways to see the world. This print is another way of experiencing the world through close looking and imaginative expansion.