Notitie met koppen Possibly 1868

Curator: I’m captivated by this intimate peek into Johannes Tavenraat’s creative process. It's a drawing in pen and ink called "Notitie met koppen," possibly from 1868, currently held at the Rijksmuseum. What springs to mind for you? Editor: Immediately, it feels like a glimpse into a very private world, almost like reading someone's diary. There's a raw honesty to these faces; they feel observed rather than posed. It's the kind of sketch you make when you're killing time, but still processing deep things, right? Curator: Exactly! And that's the appeal, isn't it? Note how Tavenraat layers text—snippets of daily life and what appear to be names and addresses—over quick character studies. The repetition of faces, all in profile, wearing these distinctive hats... It’s almost a meditation on types, wouldn't you say? Editor: I see potent symbols of a very particular time. Those hats speak volumes about profession and class, right? This piece embodies something like a cultural fingerprint – you can almost reconstruct social rituals, professional identities from the placement of each carefully-placed stroke. This "lynx sparrow," vigilante lynxpar—what do you imagine? Curator: It sets my mind spinning! "Vigilante lynx sparrow", what a thought... Perhaps these stern-looking fellows, caught by Tavenraat's eye, reminded him of watchful birds, of guardians, a detail he found humourous and striking enough to write it alongside his other jottings... And this particular combination might evoke Dutch Golden Age ideas of citizenship. What about Tavenraat himself – any ideas there? Editor: He really masters in miniature what one sees writ large across the grand portraits of the era—the stern moralizing... The Dutch burgher in his "place"... So Tavenraat takes it and makes it small, intimate, immediate – he turns it almost against itself. Curator: It seems he sees, quite cleverly, the theatre of our humanity in our daily lives! Thanks to Tavenraat's unique pen work and way of placing the images and text together, the act of witnessing is made permanent, allowing it to touch the eye of future onlookers. Editor: A casual yet striking sketch such as this turns looking into the practice of cultural preservation... Thanks to a bit of ink and a brilliant human.