Staande vrouw c. 1901 - 1927

Johan Antonie de Jonge made this drawing of a standing woman with pencil on paper. There’s a lightness to the application of the pencil; it feels like the artist is feeling their way around the form. Look at the weight of the lines, the smudging of the graphite; these details allow us to see into the artist’s process. The hand raised in the air seems to be reaching out to us. It's sketched with a tentative, searching quality that mirrors the emotional ambiguity of the subject's pose. Are they surrendering, or inviting? I find myself reminded of other artists, like Paula Rego, who explored the psychological depths of their subjects through similar formal means. In the end, it’s not about answers but about the experience of looking, of questioning.