Studieblad, onder andere met een kookpot, keukengerei en figuurstudies 1839 - 1872

Curator: What a wonderfully raw sheet of studies! The Rijksmuseum holds this drawing by Johannes Tavenraat, executed between 1839 and 1872 using ink on paper. It’s titled “Studieblad, onder andere met een kookpot, keukengerei en figuurstudies”, or, Study Sheet, including a cooking pot, kitchen utensils, and figure studies. Editor: It has a rather frenetic quality, wouldn't you say? All these different forms crammed together, the linework so immediate... it almost feels like a glimpse into the artist’s stream of consciousness. Curator: Absolutely. As a preparatory sketch, we can understand the materiality as immediate, as raw as you observed, but that makes the sketch particularly rich with understanding Tavenraat's process of developing ideas, exploring subjects. Notice how mundane kitchen implements – the kookpot, for example – share space with his figure studies. Editor: Precisely! It underscores the everyday labor inherent in artistic practice. We can think, too, of ink itself – a commodity produced through specific social and material relations— being deployed to document the labor of everyday cooking! Curator: And that interplay between the grand and the quotidian is echoed formally. Consider the contrasts in the density of the ink – in the way, the stark blacks defining the large head seem almost playful given the sketch's title! Editor: The layout reminds me of collage. These fragments relate in some obscure, associative logic. I want to spend time puzzling through them to discover if I could have arrived at similar motifs, arrangements myself. Curator: Perhaps. This wasn't a final statement but rather, a tool, reflecting a period of intense production during which Tavenraat would explore how familiar things translate into art. Editor: It’s intriguing to think of how many objects around us could become points of departure... all those latent forms waiting for an artist's hand. Curator: Exactly! An exploration for which, after all, the artmaking process itself matters far more than just the subject.