Interieur met een trap before 1910

This is W.F. Barber’s, ‘Interieur met een trap’, made at an unknown date with pen on paper. The marks are so finely made, but confident at the same time. They remind me of automatic drawing. Each line feels considered, but in the moment, building the image from lots of tiny decisions. Look closely at the way the cross hatching is used to build up the shadows around the staircase, and the door opening ahead. It is almost as if the pen is describing the darkness that inhabits the space as much as the physical form of the architecture. The staircase itself becomes a metaphor for the process of drawing, climbing upwards through a journey of decision making. I am reminded of Piranesi's etchings of imagined prisons, or maybe a little of M.C. Escher. But Barber’s piece has a warmth, an invitation, a possibility. These artists show how art can embrace ambiguity, with a conversation of ideas across time.