Studies van een staande trompetter en studies van handen en armen 1624 - 1626

Editor: Here we have Abraham Bloemaert’s "Studies van een staande trompetter en studies van handen en armen," created between 1624 and 1626. It's a pen and ink drawing on paper, currently held at the Rijksmuseum. It feels very immediate and raw, like looking at the artist's sketchbook. What captures your attention when you look at this? Curator: What grabs me? Well, for starters, the very visible *process*. I love seeing an artist wrestle with form like this. Look at the way he renders the hands! Each one seems to have a slightly different energy, a different purpose. Do you get the feeling Bloemaert was perhaps exploring the role of gesture and expression in conveying a story or an emotion? It's not just about anatomical accuracy, is it? Editor: Not at all. There's almost a sense of performance in some of the gestures. And the figure with the trumpet – he's not just standing there; he's embodying something. Curator: Exactly! Bloemaert's earlier work definitely embraced Mannerism, and I think we see some echoes of that here in the slightly exaggerated poses. It's theatrical, almost. But there’s also that very grounded, almost academic focus on the human form. See how carefully he's observed the play of light and shadow? The hands pointing or holding staves become the entire story itself! Don’t you agree that you almost feel as though he’s studying one subject multiple times. He's deeply concentrated on the subject material that can later inspire more drawings and studies. Editor: That’s so insightful. I initially just saw it as a figure study, but seeing it as exploring storytelling through gesture and form…it gives it so much more depth. It’s interesting to observe, though, that some images appear very refined whereas other examples such as the neck seem roughly formed. It appears almost as if the study went incomplete. Curator: Precisely. Perhaps it serves as the foundation for other artists in the field to continue exploration of the human anatomy with their own renditions. I now can say I find myself interpreting this in the same manner and from Bloemaert's point of view. Thank you for sharing this new point of view with me!