Stoel c. 1901

This study for a chair by Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof is just lines on paper, but it’s so much more than that. The artist uses graphite, I reckon, to explore the pure form of a chair, reducing it to its most essential elements, like a skeleton waiting for its flesh. I like the way Dijsselhof uses the graphite, sometimes thick and dark, sometimes just a faint whisper of a line. It's like he's feeling his way around the object, trying to understand its structure and its essence. I particularly love the back of the chair, these two vertical lines, kind of wobbly, a bit wonky, but full of character. It's like he's saying, "Yeah, it's a chair, but it's also a drawing, a thing in itself." It reminds me of the drawings of Gustav Klimt; there’s a similar interest in both artists in decorative form, and the reduction of an object to its most basic components, making it sing. Art isn't about perfection; it's about exploration, about seeing and feeling and thinking.