Triomfbogen c. 1901

Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof made this drawing, Triomfbogen, with pencil on paper. There's something deeply satisfying about seeing the bones of a design laid bare like this. It's like catching a glimpse of the artist's thought process, the raw, unfiltered creativity before it transforms into something more polished. I love the way Dijsselhof lets the lined paper show through; it’s almost like the architecture itself is sketched onto the very fabric of thought. Take that curve in the bottom left – it’s so tentative, so full of potential. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving across the page, searching for the perfect form. And those little flourishes, the tiny decorative details, are just *chef’s kiss*. This kind of work reminds me a little of Hilma af Klint's preparatory sketches - the interest in architectural form and design, the suggestion of occult geometries. It’s all about embracing the exploratory nature of art, where questions are more important than answers and every line is a step into the unknown.