Staand mannelijk naakt in het water, op de rug gezien 1878 - 1938

Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst made this pencil drawing, 'Standing Male Nude in Water, Seen from the Back', when? We don't know! Look at that light and shade, the crisp lines that describe his back and shoulders. I wonder if Roland Holst stood in the water himself, feeling the chill, squinting to capture the light. The pose of the man, that slight turn of the head, it's more than just the back view. I see the underlying structure, the grid, and think about all the studies artists make in their working lives. It's like a musician practicing scales, a dancer at the barre. It's about finding out how to make something look real, finding the realness within artifice. It reminds me of other life drawings by artists such as Paula Modersohn-Becker. There is something so moving in these intimate studies. They are continually in conversation, across time and space.