Roos 1883 - 1922

Editor: Here we have a sketchbook page titled “Roos,” created sometime between 1883 and 1922 by Johanna van de Kamer. It’s a delicate sketch, just pen on paper, and something about the quick, almost fleeting lines makes me feel like I’m peeking into the artist’s private thoughts. What do you see in this piece? Curator: The sketch feels incredibly intimate, doesn't it? Sketchbooks, particularly from this period, were spaces for artists to explore ideas freely, unbound by the expectations of a formal audience. Consider the socio-political landscape for women artists at this time. Do you think having a private space like a sketchbook might have been particularly important for them? Editor: Absolutely. I imagine it was a place for experimentation, free from the constraints of the male-dominated art world. Was the imagery of a rose particularly significant then? Curator: The rose, of course, is laden with symbolic meaning. Think about Victorian flower language. Roses can represent love, beauty, secrecy... Consider how those concepts intersect with the lives of women at the time. Did they have the freedom to openly express love? To control their own image of beauty? Editor: That’s a powerful point. It makes me wonder if the rose is not just a botanical study, but a quiet assertion of selfhood. Perhaps even defiance of social norms. Curator: Precisely! And we also need to examine institutions – were women permitted formal study of art? How were they excluded? Or, indeed, how did they overcome that? Thinking of a rose, which we often think of as quintessentially pretty, in such a politically charged climate, does alter its value to the artwork and indeed our perspective. Editor: I never considered the constraints under which van de Kamer created. It adds so much depth to such a simple sketch. Curator: Indeed, looking through a historical lens often reveals more about a work than a purely aesthetic one.