Prentbriefkaart aan Willem Bogtman Possibly 1934 - 1939

This is a postcard to Willem Bogtman, by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst. It's a drawing of a woman’s head – resting, eyes closed, face tilted up. The image is very tender. I wonder what Roland Holst was thinking. The hair has movement. A lovely network of lines forming and describing the mass, the weight, and the feel of hair. Was he thinking about a Pre-Raphaelite painting when he made this? Maybe the image is in conversation with something he saw on a trip? These lines, they’re like a net, a sieve. You can see how the artist has worked the image. Building up the values, shifting the shadows around to find the form. Drawing, like painting, is a process of emergence. The image comes into being through trial, error, and intuition. You can see the artist thinking, feeling, and searching. Roland Holst’s hand is very present in the making of this drawing.