Ontwerp voor raam in het Amsterdams Lyceum 1927 - 1929

This is Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst’s design for a window in the Amsterdam Lyceum. It’s a drawing on paper, made with colored chalks. I imagine Holst felt the pressure of making something inspiring for young minds. Check out the way the figure raises one hand in what looks like a gesture of teaching, or maybe of blessing. His other hand is clenched, as if holding something back. Or maybe he’s just thinking hard, which is something I can relate to. There's fire at the bottom, and a crazy, busy background. It looks like it might be stained glass, but it's rendered in something that looks like pastel. The face, though, is so alive! He made all these little geometric divisions in the composition, maybe to mimic the lead separations in stained glass, and yet he's allowed that face to be super organic. The result is a combination of both freedom and restraint, which is a tricky balance to pull off. We can only imagine how the final window looked, glowing with color. It reminds me that we’re all participating in this endless conversation across time, inspiring each other.