Drie composities, waarvan één met een figuur 1919

Reijer Stolk made this page of studies with pencil, probably in a sketchbook. You can see the ghost of previous marks, lines drawn, erased, redrawn as he searched to capture the essence of a pose or composition. This artmaking as a process is evident in the layered lines that create a sense of depth and movement, especially in the largest composition. Look at the marks around the hunched figure, it is like the artist is thinking through line; these are marks in search of a form. Note how the two smaller thumbnail sketches show different ideas. Each composition, with its rough, tentative lines, feels like a fleeting thought, a moment captured in graphite. Stolk’s approach reminds me of other sketchbooks I’ve seen by artists like Philip Guston. Both were artists who embraced the beauty of the unfinished and the power of suggestion.