Portret van Dina Klaver 1916

Julie de Graag's 1916 portrait of Dina Klaver, now in the Rijksmuseum, is a masterful play with lines and shadows, carved into wood, I imagine. It's like de Graag chiseled out the very essence of Dina, her gaze cast downward, perhaps lost in thought, or just tired. Those lines, so deliberately placed, they define the form but also seem to suggest a life lived, a story etched onto her face. I wonder what de Graag was thinking as she worked on this piece. Was she trying to capture Dina's likeness, or something more profound? The monochromatic palette, the way the light catches the planes of her face – it reminds me of other printmakers, each with their own way of carving out a world. There’s a conversation happening across time, artists speaking to each other through the language of line and form. It's like they're saying, "Hey, I see you, I feel you, I'm here too, trying to make sense of it all."