Notities en berekeningen 1919 - 1921

Willem Cornelis Rip created this work on paper, titled "Notities en berekeningen," or "Notes and Calculations," a title that immediately draws our attention to the nature of its composition. At first glance, the page appears as a chaotic jumble of numbers and annotations. Look closely, though, and you begin to notice a certain compositional logic. The page isn't uniformly filled; rather, Rip allows the blank spaces of the paper to interact with the drawn elements, creating a visual rhythm. Lines intersect and overlap, generating small pockets of depth amid the flatness of the page. The calculations and notes resist any fixed meaning. Instead, the work questions what we consider to be aesthetically pleasing or worthy of artistic consideration, existing in a realm between utility and art. It challenges us to see value in the mundane, suggesting that even the simplest of marks can hold complexity and meaning.