Portret van mevrouw van Tienhoven-Hoyack 1924

Simon Moulijn made this small pencil drawing, 'Portret van mevrouw van Tienhoven-Hoyack', sometime around 1924. The whole thing is just a flurry of marks, isn’t it? A field of greys. I love the way Moulijn builds the form of the sitter's face and fur stole with what looks like pure tone, an economy of line. The soft texture and blended strokes give the portrait a gentle, almost dreamlike quality. See that little cat head at the bottom? It looks like a tiny, furtive thought. The drawing reminds me of the portraits of James McNeill Whistler, or maybe even some of the society portraits of John Singer Sargent. All three artists shared an interest in the use of tone and atmosphere to capture a likeness, and I think that the cat adds a note of humour to the piece. Ultimately, art is about looking, thinking, feeling - and the best works leave plenty of room for all three.