Kalende man met een pijp c. 1917 - 1919

Otto Verhagen made this drawing of a pipe smoker, with what looks like pencil and maybe some coloured pencil too. You can see the artist felt his way into the image, with exploratory lines. What strikes me most is the economy of the marks, look how little information is needed to convey the set of his jaw, or the way the smoke curls from the pipe. It's like a distillation, just enough to catch the essence of the figure. There’s a real immediacy to it, as if Verhagen was trying to capture a fleeting impression, which gives it a raw and honest quality. It reminds me a little of some of Philip Guston's later, more cartoonish works, that same sense of a direct, unedited thought process laid bare on the page. Like Guston, Verhagen shows us that art doesn't always have to be about polish and perfection; sometimes, it's about the messy, imperfect beauty of simply trying to see.