Ornament Guus de Vries 1894/ 1919 1919

This black ink drawing, "Ornament Guus de Vries 1894/ 1919," was made by Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita sometime between those years. Look at how he’s wrestled with form, making something so visually arresting out of such a limited palette. You can see him trying to extract something new from the depths of abstraction. I like to imagine him in his studio, hunched over this design, refining the details, letting his intuition guide him. I wonder, what was he thinking as he laid down these lines? The thick ink creates a tactile quality, with crisp lines that feel very architectural. It's as if he's mapping out space, building a kind of fortress for language. It’s not a style I’m known for but I can appreciate the reductive quality. It reminds me a little of the graphic work of someone like Stuart Davis, but with a Dutch twist. It’s all part of this ongoing conversation among artists across time, each riffing on what came before, inspiring what comes next. Painting is a form of expression that embraces ambiguity, doesn't it?