Portret van Abraham Kuyper 1869 - 1936

Theodorus Henricus Kerstel made this drawing of Abraham Kuyper with pencil on paper. The artist creates an image using a mass of small, hatched marks. I feel like I can almost see the artist circling and searching for the form. It's a very searching process, like life drawing, where you are constantly looking, drawing, looking again. The marks are layered and dense in certain areas, like around the eyes and mouth, giving weight and volume to the face. Whereas, in other areas, like the jacket, the marks are sparser and more linear, describing the planes and angles. There is a looseness, almost an incompleteness, to the drawing, but that's what gives it its immediacy. It reminds me a little of the drawings of Van Gogh; that intensity of looking and mark-making to create not just a likeness, but a sense of the inner life of the sitter. Art isn't about definitive statements, it's more about the ongoing conversations we have with each other.