Vrouw met een muts 1890 - 1922

Johanna van de Kamer made this work on paper with graphite, but when? I wonder! Look at the marks that describe the sitter’s headscarf. They are smudgy, uncertain, but firm somehow. I get the sense that the artist wanted to create a strong likeness, but how tricky that must have been, since the medium is so unforgiving! It makes me think about my own drawing practice. It is so hard to feel your way into a form with a pencil. I wonder what Van de Kamer was thinking about as she built up the marks on the page, each line a testament to her focus. Does she labor over this work, or let the marks come naturally and intuitively? So many choices go into making a drawing, each decision altering the course of the whole, a back and forth between control and chaos. The artist is in conversation with the image, with art history, with herself.