Portret van mevrouw Anna Ida van der Schalk-van der Hoeven 1898

This is a portrait of Anna Ida van der Schalk-van der Hoeven, rendered in charcoal by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst. Holst’s choice of charcoal is critical. Unlike oil paint, with its connotations of wealth and permanence, charcoal is immediate, and unpretentious. The softness of the medium allows the artist to capture the sitter’s likeness with great subtlety, achieving a hazy atmospheric effect. It also implies a certain intimacy between artist and sitter. You can imagine Holst working rapidly to capture a fleeting expression, the ephemeral quality of charcoal aligning with the passage of time. Charcoal also has a long association with preparatory sketches. The raw, unfinished quality of the medium suggests not just portraiture, but the labor of image-making itself. In this way, Holst elevates the status of drawing. He transforms a common medium into a work of art that transcends its material origins, while subtly drawing attention to the artistic process.