Portret van kunstenaar Julius Jacobus van de Sande Bakhuyzen c. 1883 - 1914

This is Floris Arntzenius's sketch of the artist Julius Jacobus van de Sande Bakhuyzen, made with graphite on paper. The sketch conveys a sense of immediacy through its spontaneous and unfinished quality. Arntzenius uses a network of fine, wiry lines to delineate the contours of the subject's head. Notice the shading and the way the lines thicken and darken to suggest the fall of light and the structure beneath the surface. The hatching technique creates a sense of depth while simultaneously emphasizing the flatness of the paper. The sketch's composition, which crops the subject tightly, invites us to consider the relationship between figure and ground, presence and absence. This interplay between form and void, line and shadow, destabilizes the conventional portrait, shifting our focus from representation to the very act of seeing and recording. It challenges fixed notions of identity, suggesting that meaning is constructed through the dynamic interplay of visual elements. The sketch prompts a continual process of interpretation and reinterpretation.