Reproductie van een getekend portret van Lambertus Jacobus Veen after 1915

This reproduction of a drawn portrait of Lambertus Jacobus Veen, an engraving made at an unknown date by an anonymous artist, now resides in the Rijksmuseum. The portrait is all about the face, seen in profile, and the artist uses hatching and cross-hatching to build up the tones and create volume. I'm interested in the material qualities of this print. Look closely, and you can see the texture of the paper, the way the ink sits on the surface. The artist's hand is present in the lines, each one carefully placed to define the contours of the face. There's something intimate about the process of drawing, a connection between the artist and the subject. It makes me think of Lucien Freud, who also focused on the face and the body, using a similar level of scrutiny. Art is often a conversation across time. It embraces the ambiguities of existence.