Page 50 - Studio International - May 1973

contemporary Rembrandt.) There is a difference
in finish. In a Leonardo drawing the human
figure is articulated as a fixed form while any
Rembrandt drawing is curiously open-ended.
There is a hesitancy to come to a precise
definition which gives the impression that what
is there, on the paper, might change any
moment.
Contemporary drawings (done within the
independent representational system of
abstractness) reveal the same categorical
qualities of definition and/or exploration. This
implies that such qualities do not belong to
styles or systems, but more generally to artistic
psychology. The nervous scribbling of Jan
Schoonhoven, seeking to fill a sheet of paper
with discrete signs which signify drawing as a
concept (the drawing as paper drawn upon, in
any way: Schoonhoven's way or, ideologically
close, Armando's way) is as different from the
drawing of Carel Visser as are Rembrandt's
drawings from Leonardo's. The hard, clear-cut
forms of shiny black graphite in Visser's
drawings are unconditionally there, standing
out against the white; but the wavering,
fragmentary lines or the stenographic notes
in an Armando drawing (memory, too, of
the hand moving, now slow, now fast) are
seemingly trying to disappear into the wide
expanse of paper. They have no home there; but
then, how well the measured lines in Dekker's
drawings fit into their proportioned surrounding.
From the look of them, the drawings of van
den Ende or Kloosterman seem close to
Schoonhoven; their systemic character,
however, makes them as fixed as Visser's
drawings, while Maaskant's work, superficially
similar to Visser's, is totally different in
ambition. In Visser's drawings the forms are
taking a position, in Maaskant's they are seeking
for a position, hesitantly. Modern drawing is
based upon the intellectual and emotional
experience of a medium instead of the visual
experience of a world outside.3 q
'Philip Rawson, Drawing, London 1969 (The
Appreciation of the Arts, 3).
'Quotation taken from Sir Anthony Blunt, Artistic
Theory in Italy 1450-1600, London 1962, p. too.
'This note is occasioned by an exhibition of
contemporary drawings Lof der Tekenkunst (In
Praise of Drawing), organized by Carel Blotkamp
for the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven,
1973. See also Blotkamp's article in Studio
International, December 1970, pp. 249-251.

(Top)
Jaap van den Ende
Untitled 1972
Ink on paper 5o x 69 cm
Galerie Fagel, Amsterdam
Photo: van den Bichelaer
(Centre)
W. J. M. Kloosterman
Untitled 1968
Ink on paper
Coll: The artist
Photo : van den Bichelaer
(Bottom)
Carel Visser
Horizontals 1967
Pencil on paper 63 x 93 cm
The Hague: Gemeentemuseum
232