Twee studies van prinses Juliana 1910

Thérèse Schwartze sketched these two studies of Princess Juliana with graphite and pastel. I love the artist's tentative search for the essence of her young subject. It's like she's trying to capture a fleeting moment, pinning it down on paper. The marks are feathery, delicate, the image full of air. The bottom study of Juliana on all fours, with the blue ribbon around her waist, feels like she is about to crawl right off the page. I imagine Schwartze, balancing the need for a likeness with the desire to evoke the child's liveliness. I get the sense she wants to leave it unresolved, so we can see the making and unmaking of the image – this is something I’m also interested in within my own practice. It makes me think about Degas’ pastels – his ballerinas captured in mid-motion. There's an intimacy to these studies, a connection between artist and subject, that transcends time. The lightness of the pastel, combined with the surety of the graphite, creates a beautiful tension between form and formlessness, presence and absence.