Mooi hè? 1923

Erich Wichmann made this drawing, in graphite, maybe in 1923. I can imagine him working on this, a little at a time, fiddling around, trying to find the right form. It's like he's teasing out the figure from the paper, not quite sure if it will emerge. The body is kind of smudged in, while the outline is tentative, like a question. And that flower, so carefully rendered, as if to say, "Yes, this is real, this matters." There's a vulnerability to the line, a tenderness in the way the artist captures the silhouette. You can feel his hand moving across the page, searching for the right curve, the right angle. It makes me think about other artists, like Guston, always wrestling with form and meaning, trusting the process to lead them somewhere unexpected. Ultimately, it is about how an artist uses their tools and materials to make you feel something that might not have even been there before.