Bukkende naakte man 1924

Reijer Stolk made this graphite drawing of a bending nude man, we don't know exactly when. The artist builds up the figure with many small marks, letting the strokes define the body as it curves. It is a drawing all about process, about how the hand moves across the paper. I love the way Stolk uses hatching and cross-hatching to build up tone and volume. Look at the way he shades the back and shoulders, how he uses delicate lines to describe the form, pressing harder in the shadows and barely touching the paper in the highlights. It's like he's feeling the contours of the body with his pencil. The hands, reaching for the feet, are so delicately rendered as to almost disappear into the background. For me, this work echoes the drawings of someone like Egon Schiele, who uses the figure to express a sense of vulnerability and alienation. But whereas Schiele's line is often angular and aggressive, Stolk’s is soft and caressing. In this way, he invites the viewer to contemplate the tender beauty of the human form.