Man zittend in een stoel 1874 - 1925

Curator: Here we have Jan Veth's "Man zittend in een stoel," a drawing created sometime between 1874 and 1925, now residing here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Oh, he looks terribly bored. Sort of slumped, doesn't he? Like waiting for a very dull train. It's all so grey. Even the light looks dusty! Curator: The grey you mention speaks volumes, doesn't it? Notice how the medium itself, likely pencil and perhaps some ink, dictates the limited tonal range. This piece offers insight into the artist's working process. It lacks the performative aspect that's expected of many portrait drawings because the labor is visible here. Editor: I suppose so! I mostly see a fellow longing for a nap. The way the lines aren’t entirely resolved almost feels… dreamlike, or as if he's fading into the wallpaper! Is it just me, or does his clothing seems ill-fitting and a bit overdressed? Curator: The clothing could be seen as markers of class, but I read them instead as practical necessities within a specific societal structure. Consider the constraints of representing social standing within Veth's artistic context—the work underscores how materials signify personhood through very fine degrees of articulation. Editor: All the sharp edges and hasty strokes feel like they're searching for a way to define this man, though ultimately letting him fade off the page again. You see such fleeting sketches in notebooks. It does makes you wonder who he was, if Veth thought him important or rather, a momentary pause, the capture of an ordinary individual on an average day. Curator: Precisely. Veth captures not just an individual, but a moment mediated by socio-economic realities—the materials affording a quick sketch capturing what was valued in such encounters, what would hold some value. The man becomes the raw material for an inquiry, an early exercise if you like. Editor: It feels oddly intimate, in that unfinished kind of way. Thanks for peeling back another layer to the material, for helping appreciate his everyday capture for exactly that! Curator: The pleasure was all mine. Now let us carry on down to the next display.