Buste van een monnik 18th century

This is van der Straalen's "Bust of a Monk," a drawing rendered with ink on paper. The image is dominated by the monk's head and upper torso, depicted in profile, facing left. Notice how the artist uses line to convey form and texture. The lines are not uniform; they vary in thickness and density. The monk's beard, for instance, is rendered with short, wiry lines that create a sense of volume and roughness, a play with depth that enlivens the figure. Lines also radiate at the top left, perhaps indicating light, yet their abstraction pulls them from pure representation into a graphic element that interacts with the rest of the composition. The hatching is particularly intriguing; it suggests depth and shadow but also flattens the image, drawing attention to the surface of the paper itself. This tension between depth and flatness, representation and abstraction, invites us to consider the act of drawing itself. Is it simply to mirror reality, or to engage in a dialogue between the artist, the subject, and the medium? This artwork functions as a visual sign, capable of multiple readings and interpretations.