Grazend hert in een weiland c. 1904 - 1906

Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof made this drawing of a grazing deer in a meadow using colored pencil. It’s a study, really, where you can feel the artist thinking through the subject, the deer, the field it stands in. I can just imagine Dijsselhof outside with his sketchbook, quickly and intuitively working to capture the scene. It’s kind of child-like with the brown body of the deer, the blue-grey for the blades of grass, and the simplified outline of a building in the distance. You can almost feel him scratching away, trying to get it down before the deer moves. What could he have been thinking when he was making it? What kind of mark should I make? How quickly can I capture this? I also wonder, did other artists work like this in the past? You can see a dialogue going on between artists who have come before and those who will come after. It’s an ongoing conversation, inspiring one another and exchanging ideas across time. Painting is a way of thinking, of understanding and expressing our experience of the world, leaving room for uncertainty and inviting multiple readings.