Rij huizen aan een waterkant 1890 - 1946

This is a pencil drawing of houses along a waterfront by Cornelis Vreedenburgh. There's a beautiful quality to the way the artist coaxes form from the page with very few lines. Look at how the marks build up to make the shapes of the buildings, and the darker, cross-hatched area that describes the tree, or the foliage. In a drawing like this, the artist isn't trying to give you a picture of a place, but more like the sensation of being in a place. The marks are tentative, searching for the right way to describe a window, or a roof. It's like the artist is thinking out loud with their pencil, and letting us in on the process. The longer you look, the more you notice that the marks create their own reality, and that's the power of drawing – it’s an invitation to really see. It reminds me of Cy Twombly, in the way the looseness of line creates its own kind of harmony. It's never finished, but always complete.