Hand met gespreide vingers 1874 - 1923

Curator: Before us is "Hand met gespreide vingers," or "Hand with Spread Fingers," a pencil drawing on paper by Willem Witsen, dating sometime between 1874 and 1923. Editor: There's something wonderfully hesitant about this. Like Witsen's hand was sketching *his* hand, but with a question mark hovering just above the paper. It's as if he were discovering the form anew. Curator: The line work is undeniably delicate, almost tentative. We see a clear engagement with form through the subtle variations in pressure, giving dimension and movement, despite the clear minimalism. Editor: Exactly! Look how those tentative lines create a ghostly echo of the hand’s position. It's a gesture captured in fleeting time, an ephemeral dance of fingers. I mean, has anyone ever *not* doodled a hand? Curator: True. But consider the context: Witsen was a key figure in the Dutch Impressionist movement. This study could be a means of exploring human form—the way light plays across skin and bone. It’s all there in those few simple lines. Editor: Maybe. Or maybe he was just bored! There’s this charming imperfection, right? The almost childlike simplicity rescues it from feeling academic. You can feel him there, pencil in hand, in a quiet moment. It whispers of an intimate practice. Curator: Still, by isolating the hand, Witsen forces us to really *see* it—as a complex structure of lines, planes, and volumes. The composition becomes about the hand itself, rather than a narrative it may support. Editor: I love how it leaves space for my own interpretation. It’s an open invitation to engage, to project, to remember the feeling of my own hand resting on a page. It’s humble and profound, all at once. Curator: Indeed, it underscores how formal constraints paradoxically can amplify personal resonance. Editor: See? I just feel the quiet of his studio, the scrape of the pencil. Beautiful.