Studie 1906 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made this drawing, Studie, with graphite on paper. Look at the bare lines, like a map of the body! It’s such a direct, hands-on way of understanding a body part. It’s like he’s feeling his way around a form, the hatched shading suggesting its volume and depth. I can almost feel the scratch of the graphite, the give of the paper, and the artist intensely focused on the job at hand. It reminds me of those times in the studio when you’re so absorbed in what you’re doing that everything else disappears. I wonder what he thought it would be used for. Maybe it was preparation for a painting or a sculpture, or just the sheer pleasure of figuring out how things fit together. However the drawing might have been used, it’s still very interesting.