Interieur met een oude vrouw en drie kinderen c. 1928 - 1941

Miep de Feijter made this drawing of an interior with an old woman and three children with pen and ink. It's all about the lines here, right? Like, how do you create depth and shadow with just a pen? Check out the old woman’s dress, how the density of lines builds up the darkness, so different from the open, airy feeling of the curtains. And the expressions are so subtle, aren’t they? All that's needed is a slight change in line direction or a little darkening. You can almost feel the scratch of the pen on the paper, and I keep thinking about what it would be like to make a drawing like this yourself: the pressure on the pen, the slow, deliberate movement across the page. It's a reminder that art is a physical, embodied process. It reminds me of some of the early drawings of Philip Guston, or maybe even Picasso, but with a more tender, folksy approach. It's a great example of how something so simple can evoke so much emotion.