Portret van Liesbeth van Lelyveld 1945

Huub Gerretsen made this portrait of Liesbeth van Lelyveld using pencil, or maybe charcoal, sometime in the 20th century. It's all about these tiny, insistent marks that together build up the form, like seeing the world in pixels before pixels were even a thing. The texture is fascinating; it's both smooth and gritty, like looking at reality through a screen. The way the light catches the girl's face, especially around her eyes, gives her this thoughtful, almost melancholic air. It's amazing how much emotion can be conveyed with just the density and direction of these little lines. Look at the way he’s rendered the hair, each strand seems to have its own life, its own little story, yet they all come together in this harmonious, almost tangible mass. Gerretsen's work reminds me of some of the old masters, like Dürer, but with a modern sensibility, a rawness that feels very contemporary. It's a reminder that art is always in conversation with itself, across time.