Schakende man Possibly 1876

Curator: So, here we have "Schakende man", or "Chess Player", a drawing by David Bles, likely from 1876. It's currently held in the Rijksmuseum collection. My initial feeling? The texture is interesting. Editor: Oh, the drama of that face! And that flamboyant, Napoleonic-era costume! It feels like a sketch dashed off in a moment of inspired intensity, all pencil grit and frustrated genius. You can almost smell the stale coffee and hear the frantic scribbling. Curator: Right. The economic viability of pencil sketches like these, their accessibility, allowed artists to explore new characterizations without heavy investments in resources. This freedom led to looser, more expressive figuration, as we see here. Note, especially, the smaller sketch off to the right, implying studies or experimentation. Editor: That second sketch! It’s like a whisper of doubt. Did Bles nail the posture? The mood? It adds such a delicious layer of…what's the word…introspective insecurity to the swagger of the main figure. It makes me think, was Bles playing chess against himself, symbolically speaking, agonizing over his next artistic move? Curator: Or more literally, documenting a session with a model, repeating his pose to secure accuracy. It really spotlights a working process common amongst late-19th century artists. The materiality here is fundamental; pencil on paper allows for erasure and iteration. It's an economical medium reflecting a shift toward wider artistic accessibility. Editor: Ah, you ground my flights of fancy with pragmatic process! But isn’t there something romantic, something melancholy, in those gray tones? The way the light catches his brow? He’s not just calculating his next move on the chessboard, is he? He's facing some deeper, existential challenge. It reads a bit like art as personal catharsis. Curator: While personal reflection is valid, I lean toward how artists were working during that time; the pressures they felt under market conditions; Bles may have found more creative fulfillment producing drawings like these, and pencil sketches as artworks in themselves. Editor: I still like to believe our chess player wasn’t just thinking of market forces! Regardless, something like this gets you thinking, doesn't it? The skill and insight of such a fleeting image, is something I admire.