Rug van een naakte figuur 1906 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made this drawing of a nude figure’s back sometime between 1910 and 1945 with pencil on paper. It is a soft graphite world, a very delicate touch, searching for a form. Can you see how the lines of the back kind of dissolve into the shoulder? I imagine Stolk, the artist, with his eyes glued to the subject, maybe even squinting to simplify the scene, to see the planes and curves more abstractly. There’s something so vulnerable about a nude, isn’t there? Stolk really captures that here. There is a wonderful, sweeping line that begins at the neck and cascades to the shoulder. It’s a confident mark that shows the artist is at one with his materials. I can almost see him breathing in as he makes this stroke, and out as he lifts the pencil. We are all connected through looking, drawing, seeing, and making.