Vijf mannen op een rij bij de voeten van een reus c. 1936 - 1940

Henk Henriët made Vijf mannen op een rij bij de voeten van een reus with pencil, and the composition is all about trying things out, right there on the page. It reminds me that the process of making art is really a process of thinking. You can see the ghost of the artist’s hand in every mark. The graphite has a beautiful, soft sheen, the lines shifting in weight and direction. It’s really about seeing how far a line can go, and how it feels to draw it, and where it leads, almost like automatic writing. See how the shading on the giant’s boot becomes a sort of abstract field. The artist is so interested in the boot itself, in its form and presence, that the shading doesn't really describe it so much as give it an even greater dimension. Henriët’s willingness to let us see his working, his doubts and his experiments, puts me in mind of Philip Guston’s late works, and his embrace of humor and ambiguity. We’re allowed to feel our way into the image, rather than being told what to think.