Notities 1849 - 1895

Curator: "Notities," or "Notes," by Willem Koekkoek, dates roughly from 1849 to 1895. We see here an open sketchbook, featuring pen, ink, pencil, and watercolor on paper. What catches your eye first? Editor: The stark contrast. The page on the left feels aged, almost ghostly, in its emptiness, while the right page hints at architectural forms sketched with a delicate hand. It's a study in absence and presence, wouldn't you agree? Curator: Yes, absence and presence, indeed. I find myself drawn to the almost illegible script, the figures juxtaposed on the facing page. There’s a clear contrast that might imply financial annotations versus creative outpourings, almost as though revealing a fragmented cultural memory or symbolic history buried in our unconscious. Editor: Precisely. And the materiality of the paper—the stains, the slight buckling— speaks to its history, its physical journey through time and Koekkoek's space. Curator: The notes point towards a deeper sense of a time in which these economic models operated. What would they buy, what would they facilitate, where would one be able to travel? I notice they juxtapose the careful depiction of physical objects alongside these abstractions of capitalism. Editor: It's a tension reflected throughout the piece. Even the technique speaks to it. The architectural sketches, while clearly defined, still possess a dreamlike quality given how lightly applied it is to the paper. Curator: It reflects a way of seeing in an attempt to materialize culture in ways that suggest there were real tensions about the direction and intent behind social organization in his era. Perhaps even hinting at his anxieties? Editor: I can see that. A dialogue between structure and dream, calculation and inspiration. An intimate glimpse into the mind of the artist grappling with his present. Curator: Ultimately, a poignant reflection, frozen in time on these delicate pages. It’s a symbolic key of understanding his moment of modernity. Editor: And, on the surface, deceptively simple!