Ontwerp voor een affiche voor een expositie in Laren 1884 - 1952

This is a sketch for an exhibition poster, made with graphite on paper by Reinier Willem Petrus de Vries. You can see the artist figuring things out. The lines are tentative, searching, almost like a drawing in progress, which, of course, it is. I'm drawn to the way the artist captures the light cast by the lamp, with those loose, scribbled lines. It gives the sketch a real sense of energy, of something being caught in the moment. It’s not about perfection, but about the act of seeing, of trying to put something down on paper. It reminds me a bit of Daumier, who also had this incredible ability to capture the essence of a scene with just a few, well-placed lines. It's like they're both saying, "Art is a conversation, not a monologue." And it's a conversation that's still going on today.