Staande vrouw c. 1901 - 1927

Johan Antonie de Jonge made this drawing of a standing woman with pencil on paper, sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. It is difficult to say if this drawing is a study for a larger work or a work in its own right. The delicate lines here feel like the start of something, the very first marks in an act of creation. You can almost see the artist circling around the form, mapping out the body's parameters, trying to capture something fleeting. I wonder what de Jonge was thinking as he made it, looking at the model? The beauty of a drawing like this lies in its incompleteness. It shows us the artist’s mind at work, grappling with form and expression, an ongoing conversation with other artists across time, inspiring each other’s creativity. We see the artist’s embodied expression, which embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations.