Gehurkte naakte vrouw 1878 - 1938

Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst’s Gehurkte naakte vrouw is a drawing that likely emerged through a process of looking, shifting, and making corrections. There’s a tentative, searching quality in the lines, which is very appealing. It makes me think about the artist’s process, and how the work came into being. I can imagine the artist puzzling over the model, maybe circling around her a bit, trying to figure out how to get it just right. See how one of the model's hands is floating off to the side? It looks like the artist wanted to capture a certain gesture, a certain movement. It's a reminder that art-making is an ongoing conversation across time. Artists build upon each other’s ideas, inspiring each other's creativity. I love that drawing is so immediate and embodied; it embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations. There is no fixed reading.