Hoofd c. 1916

Reijer Stolk made "Hoofd" with pencil on paper sometime before 1945, and it's now in the Rijksmuseum. It looks like a sketch of a head, but it’s more than that. See how the lines overlap, creating a kind of geometric structure? I wonder if Stolk was exploring how we perceive form, breaking it down into its basic components. The lightness of the pencil strokes gives it a fleeting, ephemeral quality, like a thought that’s just forming. You can see the artist’s hand at work, feeling their way around the subject, making corrections, and additions. There's a real intimacy in the drawing, and that’s what connects us with the work. It’s like we’re looking over Stolk's shoulder, witnessing his creative process in real time. It reminds me of Giacometti's drawings, how they capture a sense of searching, of never quite arriving at a fixed representation.