Menselijke schedel op een stok before 1936

This is a page from a sketchbook by F. Ockerse, and it contains two studies of a skull on a stick, made in pencil and ink. I’m wondering, was the artist thinking of Van Gogh while they were drawing? The skull seems to float on the page like some of his still lifes. Maybe it’s more of a memento mori, a reminder of death, but there’s something witty about it too. Like a dark joke. The skull is not just about death, but about life—the life that was, and how we remember it. When I look at this skull, I imagine Ockerse tracing those lines, feeling the texture of the paper under their hand. It is through this exchange, mark by mark, that artists of every kind work through feeling, building ideas, and coming to terms with living.