Reclameontwerpen voor zonneschermen 1919

Curator: Let's examine Reijer Stolk's "Reclameontwerpen voor zonneschermen," created in 1919. It’s a drawing rendered with pencil on toned paper, and currently residing at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: What immediately strikes me is the unfinished quality. It's intriguing to see the artist's process so openly displayed, but it can be difficult to see how this can be the start of a commercial piece. How do you interpret this work through its composition and technique? Curator: Precisely. Note the artist's mark-making: the frenetic, overlapping lines forming figures, the use of positive and negative space in the seated figures. The absence of color, save the tone of the paper itself, focuses our attention on line and form. What compositional strategies recur throughout the page? Editor: I see figures in rectangular boxes. The marks give me a feeling of both careful representation and speedy recording of observations. Curator: And it is precisely that relationship, between quick sketches and enclosed frames, which is productive to me. Do you consider the rectangles frames, windows or something else? Editor: I never thought of the sketches as studies *for* advertising, maybe because they are very self-contained, but in the rectangular composition. I am interested in your perspective on their function for the artist. Curator: Consider the use of line. Are they descriptive or suggestive, are they more focused on external representations or about form, and how do you read that from the sketches alone? Editor: Well, the looseness feels suggestive. It invites us to participate in the completion of the figures, adding to their depth. I came to this work interested in advertising sketches and leaving curious about the medium of drawing itself. Thank you for your comments! Curator: And I must agree that its charm lies in its unresolved state. The interplay of form and line allows us to investigate Stolk's process through an almost semiotic engagement of seeing as representation.