Fantasie: profielkop naar rechts in een witte rechthoek, omgeven door zwart (rechtsonder is het zwart gewassen) 1920

Curator: Looking at this compelling work, “Fantasie: profielkop naar rechts in een witte rechthoek, omgeven door zwart (rechtsonder is het zwart gewassen)", an ink drawing created in 1920 by Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, currently held at the Rijksmuseum…my first impression is its rather stark, almost ghostly quality. Editor: There's a certain disquiet, isn't there? The high contrast and simplified form give it a chilling edge. I wonder what contexts might be informative here. Mesquita was Jewish, born in Amsterdam… I think that identity can lend new understanding here. The dark outlining of the form, confining the head. The washes in the bottom-right feel evocative of the traumas of displacement and loss that so many people suffered and indeed that his own family would be victims of. Curator: True, but on a purely compositional level, the stark black frame focuses the gaze. The artist used ink to build a simple contrast. Editor: But that's part of its power! To disconnect it from the reality, say, of a painted portrait frees the representation up to reflect symbolic qualities of trauma and mourning in the artist’s lived world. Even in that confined pictorial space we still get a sense of the subject’s existence being inextricably defined by its circumstances. Curator: Yet, by stripping away detail, don't you think it becomes somewhat universal? I see a meditation on mortality and impermanence that transcends the individual and historical context. It is like he's reducing the person to a fleeting idea, hence "Fantasie." Editor: Absolutely. And it's within that tension between the particular and universal, the specific tragedy of Jewish persecution, the identity and that sense of human vulnerability, that the drawing's richness truly lies. Curator: So, whether read formally or critically, Mesquita’s image definitely invites deep consideration. Editor: Exactly. By considering it in intersection with biographical events, this work gains a striking dimension, allowing us to contemplate the complexities of history in profound ways.