Studies 1906 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made this series of Studies with pencil on paper, and it now lives at the Rijksmuseum. What strikes me about it is the ghostliness of the marks, like trying to recall a dream. The texture of the paper is visible, a kind of old, rough surface, and the pencil lines are so faint, almost like he was afraid to commit. You can see erasures, changes of mind, the physical process laid bare, and in a way, the artist's thinking. Notice those little zigzags at the bottom. They're so tentative, so searching. The nature of art is that it's an ongoing dialogue. This piece reminds me of Agnes Martin’s drawings, so quiet and insistent, but also of the sketches of Cy Twombly, where the gesture is all. Stolk’s Studies is a reminder that art isn't about answers, but about questions and seeing.