Zelfportret: B-1-1, 5 mei Possibly 1942 - 1945

Cor van Teeseling drew this self-portrait on paper with graphite, we think on May 5th. The first thing I notice is the lightness of the touch, a real delicacy of line. It’s barely there, like a ghost of an image. It makes me think about process, about how much to say and how much to leave unsaid. What is it about a drawing that feels so intimate, so like a direct line to the artist's hand and mind? Look at the lines around the eyes. They're so tentative, so searching. You can almost feel him trying to capture his own gaze, his own expression, like trying to grasp something fleeting. It reminds me of Giacometti, another artist who was obsessed with the difficulty of seeing, of representing the human figure. Both artists seem to be saying that art is not about capturing a likeness, but about the process of looking, of questioning, of trying to understand. It’s a conversation with oneself and the world. And maybe that's why art matters, because it embraces ambiguity, multiple perspectives, rather than fixed meanings.