Plant en hangende takken met bladeren c. 1916

Reijer Stolk made this drawing, Plant en hangende takken met bladeren, sometime between 1896 and 1945. It's a pencil sketch, a study of plants, maybe in a greenhouse. I love the dense hatching in the background, like a wall of vertical lines pressing forward. It makes the big, blank leaves in the foreground feel even more present, like simple shapes floating in the air. I can imagine Stolk sitting there with his pencil, figuring out how to translate the lushness of the plants into a language of marks. There's a real push and pull between the detail and the overall form. It reminds me of other artists who use drawing to understand the world, like Philip Guston or even some of Matisse's line drawings. Each mark seems to be searching for a way to capture the essence of the plant, almost like the plant is revealing itself to the artist.