Portret van Abraham Kuyper 1869 - 1936

Here is Theodorus Henricus Kerstel's portrait of Abraham Kuyper, a delicate graphite drawing. Look at the cross-hatching that builds the shadows on his face, like the gentle whisper of lines mapping out his features. You can see the artist building form and mass through this fine network of marks. I imagine Kerstel, carefully rendering each line, trying to capture not just Kuyper's likeness, but also some sense of his character. Notice how the weight of the lines become lighter as he moves down to the body. The body feels more gestural, more approximate. What did Kerstel make of his sitter? It’s like a conversation between the artist and his subject, recorded in graphite on paper. Each stroke carries a bit of the artist's thought, his observation, and maybe even his feelings about the man he’s drawing. And now, we get to join that conversation, decades later. It is an ongoing exchange of ideas across time, each inspiring the other’s creativity.