Schetsen van vrouwen 1876 - 1951

This sketch of women by Theo Nieuwenhuis, wherever and whenever it was made, looks to me like it was done with some sort of graphite stick, maybe even a charcoal, something dry. You know, the kind of stuff that smudges if you even look at it wrong. The thing about this piece is that it’s all about the process. Look at how those lines are rough and unfinished. It's like Nieuwenhuis was trying to capture a feeling, a fleeting moment. Take the figure on the bottom right. See how the shading on her dress is all these short, broken lines? It’s not about detail, it’s about getting the gist of it down. The whole thing has this quality that reminds me of, like, a Cy Twombly drawing. It's like an echo of something real, but not the real thing itself, right? It’s a bunch of marks, but somehow it makes a whole world.