Ornament c. 1901

Curator: Immediately I think: gentle yearning. It’s faint, almost ghostly, these tentative lines on paper…like a secret whispered. Editor: Indeed, a quiet piece. This is a pencil drawing entitled “Ornament,” created around 1901 by Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof. It’s currently held at the Rijksmuseum. There's a sense of something incomplete, yet full of potential, right? Curator: Precisely. It's a study, a fragment. You see that swirling motif, poised above what could be…legs, horns…or architectural supports? The ambiguity itself is the poem. What object was it destined to adorn, what cultural meanings does it evoke? Did it end up anywhere? Editor: Dijsselhof was deeply embedded in the Art Nouveau movement. This sketch provides insight into his design process, a moment captured before the form materialized into something 'complete' perhaps showcased at an exhibition in his era and shaped by cultural norms and aesthetics of that time. What intrigues me is that incompleteness, almost a revolt against rigid norms! Curator: That incomplete aspect… it lets the viewer complete the journey, perhaps. I am drawn to this pencil and paper - I mean it’s simplicity against Art Nouveau as an opulent aesthetic. Editor: Well, Dijsselhof experimented with the interplay of art, craft, and nature – a very strong theme in the decorative arts discourse then. These sketches may reflect his attempts to connect to tradition. Ornament often references traditional culture - to celebrate national identity or to justify social heirarchies.. Curator: Ah, the old social game. The ornament reflecting and upholding those with the wealth and power to commission the arts... Editor: Exactly, it’s a mirror reflecting wealth, prestige, power… But works like this make one wonder if Dijsselhof, even within his time, maybe questioned the very nature of decoration... What it truly signifies when reduced to just a handful of wispy lines on a page... Curator: A deconstruction. The question lingering still – is beauty just adornment, or something that pierces us through the barest whisper of line? What do YOU think it does to ornaments? Editor: What it does to ornaments? To remind us, maybe, of all that goes unseen in what we consider ‘beautiful’ – the process, the social undercurrents. Thank you so much! Curator: And to you as well! Let’s seek beauty beyond the gleam.