Ontwerp illustratie voor King Lear van Shakespeare: Koning Lear en Cordelia gevangen 1878 - 1948

Jacob Pieter van den Bosch made this illustration for Shakespeare's King Lear with ink on paper. It's all about the lines, isn't it? Dense hatching and cross-hatching, the artist thinking through the scene, marking the paper, going over and over. I can imagine Van den Bosch wrestling with the weight of the story, the tragedy of Lear and Cordelia. You can see the heaviness in the thick lines that define the figures, burdened by armor and the bars of the prison. Look at Cordelia's face, the downcast eyes, the small details of her costume rendered with such care. The surface is alive with marks, little jabs and strokes that describe the scene, but also communicate something about the artist’s own emotional response. I think about other artists who have been drawn to Shakespeare, like Delacroix and Fuseli, all in conversation across time, interpreting and reinterpreting these timeless stories. It's a reminder that art is always an exchange, a process of translation and transformation.