Schapenscheerder 1874 - 1929

Willem van der Nat made this charcoal drawing, 'Schapenscheerder', sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century, and you can see he's really feeling his way around the shapes. It's like he’s thinking out loud with the charcoal. Look at the way the charcoal sort of hovers and smudges, not quite committing, leaving room for change. The texture is soft and crumbly, and where he's leant into it, it becomes almost velvety. It's not about capturing a perfect likeness, but more about the act of looking and responding. The dark patch of charcoal on the shearer's back is balanced by the hazy marks dissolving into the ground around the figures. It suggests something about how we perceive weight and pressure and how it impacts on what we see. There's a dialogue between the artist and the paper, a conversation that invites us to join in. It reminds me a little of Daumier's lithographs, in that both artists are so rooted in the everyday. Art isn't about answers, it's about questions and possibilities.