Tactile Drawing - Voorover

Description and Manual

Pieter Ouborg Voorover 1932 Ink on paper 36 by 30 cm Tactile drawing

Here you can remove the tactile drawing from the wall and place it on the lectern on the right.

If you did not know any better, you might think this is an acrobat doing a handstand.

The figure is not realistically depicted however.

The chequered pattern and fantasy figures on his suit remind one of a joker.

Try to discover it.

In the air you can feel the legs with a large phallus in between. With a lot of imagination, you could call the semicircles that sit at the top of the legs feet. On each foot, you feel ten protrusions. Are these the toes?

The body, which consists of all kinds of fantasy patterns, makes a big twist. Perhaps you can feel the two arms resting on the floor.

The pointed object between the arms on the floor resembles the hat that a joker or acrobat would wear on its head.

Pieter Ouborg has expressed himself artistically in various ways. His work covers traditional drawings of Indonesian women during his stay in the Dutch East Indies, colourful abstract oil paintings and a surrealistic drawing that is both playful and funny.

You can get acquainted with all these techniques and styles of Ouborg by exploring the different tactile drawings.

Text by Fleur Brom, museum teacher at the Van Abbemuseum.