Dagboeknotities c. 1915 - 1921

Willem Witsen made these diary notes at an unknown date using graphite on paper. Imagine him hunched over this little book, the tip of his graphite wearing down as it moves, scratching into the fibers of the page. I can sympathize with him - what was he thinking when he made this? What thoughts preoccupied his mind as he was writing? I wonder about the pressure he used to create those marks, some darker and more decisive, others lighter and more tentative, all filling the surface of the page. The overall impression is a soft grey, almost meditative. Maybe other artists such as Cy Twombly and Rosemarie Trockel were thinking about these pages as they were writing their own notebooks. Thinking across time, it's clear that artists are constantly in dialogue, inspiring each other's creativity. What is captured here is one artist's attempt to make sense of his world through the very embodied act of mark making.