Miljoenen binnengehaald voor het bijzonder onderwijs 1917

Patricq Kroon made this black ink drawing on paper, called “Miljoenen binnengehaald voor het bijzonder onderwijs”. Imagine the artist leaning over the paper, letting the brush dance across the surface, intuitively building up the image bit by bit. The contrasting tones create bold forms of two figures with a sack of money. The dark areas are really dark, and the light ones left bare, giving a graphic quality. I wonder what Kroon was thinking as he made this? Is it an illustration, a political cartoon, or something else? He's got this great, almost satirical style with the exaggerated features of the characters. Just look at those shoes! It kind of reminds me of some of Philip Guston’s later figurative works, where he used simplified shapes to depict cartoonish characters. Artists have been riffing off each other across time for ages, sharing ideas and inspiring new ways of seeing and thinking. It’s all one big, ongoing conversation! The beauty of art is that it embraces ambiguity, inviting us to find our own meanings within it.