De hulpverlening tijdens de watersnood van 1926, symbolisch voorgesteld 1926

Jan Toorop made this work on paper in 1926 using pen and brush in brown ink. It's a symbolic representation of aid during the flood disaster of 1926. Look at the way Toorop uses these brown lines, building up this image plane by plane. It's not so much about the representation but about the act of remembrance. You can almost see him there, bending over the paper, carefully layering one line over another, and deciding what to conceal and what to reveal. What was he thinking as he drew this? About the real people affected by the disaster? The emotional resonance of the work gets under your skin as a viewer, doesn’t it? It’s like he's channeling something, like a medium. It’s this quality that connects him to other mystical and symbolist artists. When we look at works like this, we recognize that artists are always in conversation with each other, picking up ideas, and transforming them.