Ontwerp voor raam in het Amsterdams Lyceum 1922

Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst designed this window for the Amsterdam Lyceum with chalk and charcoal on paper. It's all about the geometry, isn't it? The leading creates the pattern here, those strong vertical and horizontal lines—that’s what holds the whole thing together. I really get the sense that the artist is constructing something piece by piece. I imagine Roland Holst considering how each shape and colour interacts. What happens when the blue meets the yellow, for instance? How does the figure emerge from this architecture? He’s feeling his way through the image, working it out as he goes, kinda like a puzzle. I wonder if it was difficult, designing something that would then be made by someone else? I feel his hand in the charcoal marks, the building blocks of the composition. I guess that's what all artists do. They give form to feeling.