Naakte vrouw 1903 - 1920

Henk Schilling made this drawing, Naakte Vrouw, sometime before 1942, with ink on paper. I imagine him hunched over his desk, painstakingly building up the darks and lights of the image with fine strokes. Look at the face of the woman – there’s something really vulnerable about the lowered gaze and the delicate modeling of the face. But the body is a bit more powerful; she’s presented as a vessel, maybe pregnant, and the muscles of her abdomen are carefully delineated. It's all framed by strong graphic lines, contained by a border. I think of other artists who walked this line between graphic power and tender introspection, like Paula Modersohn-Becker or even some of the German Expressionists. They were all in conversation, trying to find new ways to represent the human form and the complexities of inner life. And that conversation continues today; we're all adding our voices to it, trying to figure things out through line and form.