Pierrot en ruiter op een dressuurpaard 1934

Lodewijk Schelfhout made this drawing of a pierrot and a horse…and another figure…we don’t know exactly when. The drawing is spare, using just a few wisps of graphite. It’s delicate. I feel for the artist in this moment of making. Was he thinking about Picasso’s circus performers, or maybe even Degas’s melancholy drawings of dancers? I wonder, was he trying to capture something fleeting, like a memory fading away? Or maybe he was just doodling, letting his hand wander across the page, letting the image emerge organically. Look how softly the lines fall on the paper, giving form to the pierrot's solemn face and the horse's mane. It reminds me that drawing can be such an intimate act, a kind of conversation between the artist and the paper. These early twentieth-century artists were all in conversation with each other, challenging conventions and exploring new ways of seeing and representing the world around them. They inspire us to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty, and to find beauty in the simplest of gestures.