Zittende man op een stoel 1933

Henk Henriët made this drawing of a seated man on a chair in 1933 with what looks like charcoal. It is a study in darkness and light. Imagine Henriët, hunkered over the paper, smudging and layering with that powdery black stuff. I can almost feel the charcoal dust under my fingernails, getting everywhere. What's cool is how the darkness of the man's clothes and the chair kind of wraps around the lightness of his face and hands. Look at the way his hands are clasped—it's such a simple gesture, but it speaks volumes. Is he anxious? Contemplative? I wonder what Henriët was thinking about as he captured this moment. Maybe he was just trying to nail the pose, or maybe he saw something deeper in his subject. Artists often use portraiture to work through ideas about the self, the artist is always implicated. There is a real intimacy in the way Henriët used the charcoal to capture the textures of the jumper. It’s an intimate drawing and feels like it was made in one sitting. Painting and drawing is like a conversation between artists, across time.