Driedelig kamerscherm met wolken en bloemen

A diagonal streak of cloud gleams brightly in a twilit landscape. In the foreground, Charley Toorop painted a pair of diagonally crossed branches. Their angular shapes contrast with the sinuous lines of the other forms. The pictorial space is shallow and compressed. On the left, the scene verges on abstraction, with shapes that are difficult to identify. The almost otherworldly mood is enhanced by the use of luminous and dark hues, a palette that typifies the Dutch branch of Expressionism. In creating the design, Toorop may have been thinking of life’s natural cycle, and possibly thought of the flower with its drooping petals as a symbol of decay. Apparently the room divider was not for Toorop herself. It was first exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum in 1919, and was available for purchase. The museum was to acquire the work thirty years later. In the 1920s, Toorop returned to scenes of everyday life, with an emphasis on plasticity and abstract stylization (a style referred to as Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, or New Objectivity). The landscape appeared solely as background.