Cacaoboom c. 1916 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made this sketch of a Cacaoboom sometime before 1945, probably in pencil. It's a light touch drawing, and I can imagine Stolk making this, maybe sitting under the tree itself. You know, there is something so immediate and simple about a sketch. It is like capturing a thought as it appears. I wonder what Stolk was thinking as he drew these cocoa pods? Maybe he was thinking about their journey from Africa, where he suggests the Cocoa comes from, all the way to Europe. These fragile lines now preserved in the Rijksmuseum somehow bridge vast distances. It's as if the simple gesture of his drawing hand has something important to tell us about the global connections that make up our world. Artists throughout time make sketches, and, in this way, they are constantly learning from each other's marks, and it all becomes part of one big conversation.