Mannen met een mop, emmer en hoepel c. 1904 - 1906

Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof made this drawing of men with a mop, bucket and hoop, now held at the Rijksmuseum, with colored pencil. Look at how light the marks are, there’s a real gentleness in the way he approached the page. The colors are very simple – blues, greens and browns – with a kind of tentative, searching quality. The texture of the paper shows through and becomes part of the image. The beauty of this piece lies in the fact that it's unfinished. You can see every stroke, every correction. It's like Dijsselhof is thinking aloud on paper, figuring out how to make these figures hold their tools and occupy space. There’s a directness and an openness to this work. It reminds me a little of Guston’s late work, a kind of humble but deeply poetic engagement with everyday life. The drawing feels like a sketch, a momentary capture of a fleeting idea, a testament to the process of artmaking itself.