Twee mannen met een baret, de een met een geheven glas c. 1936 - 1940

Henk Henriët sketched these two chaps with barets and a glass, sometime before 1945, using what looks like graphite and maybe some blue pencil. It's all about the fluidity of the line, a real sense of capturing a moment, a gesture. You can almost see him thinking, deciding where to put the next mark. Look at the way the lines dance around the figures, they’re not really filled in, but somehow that makes them more alive, more present. The surface is raw, immediate. You can see the artist's hand, the pressure of the pencil, the way the lines sometimes overlap and tangle. It's not about perfection, but about the energy of the moment. Check out how the head of the figure to the right is more defined than the rest. It reminds me of some of the early sketches by Van Gogh, this directness, this willingness to leave the process visible. Art isn't about answers, it's about the questions we ask along the way.