Koppen 1840 - 1880

Editor: This is "Koppen," a pen and ink drawing by Johannes Tavenraat, sometime between 1840 and 1880. The expressions on those faces are something else! What do you see in this tangle of lines and glances? Curator: You know, it feels like overhearing a very intense, slightly secretive conversation at a tavern, doesn’t it? Or perhaps, more darkly, peering into the soul of a collective anxiety. Tavenraat gives us so little, yet the energy vibrates. Have you ever sketched a group of people, trying to catch not just likeness, but the *feeling* of their gathering? Editor: I have! And it's so difficult! It's like capturing smoke. Do you think he was trying to say something about… Dutch society, maybe? Curator: Possibly! Though, to be honest, I think he might've been more interested in the sheer challenge. The rapid strokes suggest a fleeting moment captured, a virtuoso performance, a fleeting moment given a false sense of permanence. Notice how the faces emerge from the shadows? He leads our eye exactly where he wants. Editor: It feels unfinished somehow, yet also very complete. Like a fragment of a dream that still makes perfect sense. Curator: Exactly! And isn’t that often how memory works? Fragmentary, emotive, suggestive… a world evoked with a handful of lines. Makes you want to pick up a pen and try it yourself, doesn’t it? Editor: It really does. I see the value of sketching in capturing feeling. Thank you! Curator: My pleasure! And it makes you see things in the everyday world around us, doesn't it? Wonderful isn't it?