Figuur met lang haar en een baard, gekleed in een jurk met knopen Possibly 1944

Curator: Immediately, the starkness hits me. There's something so exposed in the fragility of the lines, like a half-formed memory struggling to take shape. Editor: That’s an interesting read, given the time it was made. Here we have "Figure with Long Hair and a Beard, Dressed in a Gown with Buttons," a pencil drawing on paper possibly created in 1944 by Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita. It is currently held at the Rijksmuseum. Curator: It's a perplexing figure. Androgynous, almost…or is it that the lines resist easy categorization? Look how the chair overwhelms the figure. The rough strokes that capture their clothing and long hair contrast strangely with those eyes. What can you tell me about its origins? Editor: Mesquita was tragically captured and murdered at Auschwitz. The later drawings such as this, done while in hiding, signal a clear artistic shift, an attempt to grapple with trauma through these isolated portraits of imagined or remembered figures. Curator: That context illuminates the mood—the palpable tension. But purely in terms of visual language, the emphasis on line rather than volume, the stark contrast between the roughly sketched areas and the more defined features creates a disquieting effect. Is there a rejection of depth? Editor: In his time of hiding, his aesthetic decisions certainly challenged earlier academic conventions. Notice how his drawings made prior had precise depictions of the body but then they began to resemble ghosts of memory and served as an outlet during a time of social turbulence. It is interesting to me that he draws inspiration from modernism in its style, even amidst all the turmoil. Curator: I'm fascinated by the ambiguity, the ways it elicits feelings of unease even without knowing its harrowing origins. There’s something about its vulnerability. Editor: Understanding the context does add another layer of understanding though, to how Mesquita transforms this period of extreme adversity and persecution. Curator: It serves as a reminder, certainly, that form and content are intertwined in profound ways. This seemingly simple drawing resonates with complexity precisely because of that interplay.