Imaginary compositions

Green Bamboos

Kees van Willigen · 1915–1990

Date

1974

Medium

Oil painting

Size

80 x 57 cm

Green Bamboos inaugurates the theme of bamboos, which Kees van Willigen took up several times, notably in Yellow Bamboos (1980). He knew this Asian plant, frail in appearance but very resistant.

He combines it with depictions of mouths, which may represent the breath of life and allow portraits without explicit faces to be suggested. The crossing of the bamboo stalks calls for delicate execution.