Ontwerp voor raam in het Noordertransept in de Dom te Utrecht c. 1934

This design for a window in Utrecht Cathedral by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst uses chalk and graphite to explore form and light. I can imagine him in the studio, wrestling with the composition, maybe even a bit frustrated. The geometric lines create a sense of structure, but the shading softens it, giving the design a sense of depth. It’s like he's building something solid but also letting light and shadow dance across the surface. See how the blue areas peek through the predominantly brown hues? The marks remind me a bit of stained glass. The way the colors shift and blend feels like light filtering through colored glass, creating a spiritual, meditative mood. This piece feels like it has a foot in both the solid world and the ethereal one. Artists are always trying to talk to each other across time, riffing off each other's ideas, and I wonder what he would have thought of the finished window.