About This Work

Alive and Kicking This graphite pencil drawing ‘Geesje kwak – 05-05-25’ is a return to laying hatched strokes in an impressionist style. Last time I employed it was in ‘De Smorenhoek – 15-12-24’. Almost half a year ago. Since then I did a lot of pastels, no oils (still one in progress) and several cubist portraits and nudes. This is how it goes. Last week I was searching for something new. Whilst installing a new laptop I had all the time in the world and then suddenly it hit me. Why not revisit the ‘Geesje Kwak’ theme. Somehow I knew there was still stuff in the basement. However, I ran out of Breitner reference pictures of her but why not make one up myself. After all, my last painting of her as very much altered to my taste. You know, Geesje isn’t dead really. She just lives on to keep us charmed. A Better Job Then I thought of a drawing I made of her holding a vase. I knew I could do a better job. A bit static maybe but what if I could broathen the scenery by introducing a window to the left. Then I could do a bit of a homage to Breitner. So I depicted his famous Rokin painting with horse and cart in the back. All my life I simply adored this painting. This time I had a closer look at it and it looks more freely or roughly painted than it lets on. It’s just that I reckon painting the horse and carriage placed in slanted position to be a tall order. Surely, it must have costed him some trouble since it’s not easy to get these proportions right impressionistically. Blobs of paint also with the window frames in the back easy can deliver you a rubble pile. Revival Anyway, a bow once more to a great artist. Also a thank you for quite some charming photos and of course paintings of Geesje. Without him we wouldn’t have known of her existance of which we know so little. She symbolizes all unkown hard working people from the past whose tracks are erased by history. If I can manage to revive one of them wouldn’t that bring many alive again too? Graphite pencil (Sakura 0.5 mm, Pentel 4B) drawing Talens Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm) Artist: Corné Akkers