Boerderijen 1907

Alexander Shilling made this drawing of farmhouses with graphite on paper. I like to imagine him outside, squinting a little as he looks back and forth from the subject to the page, trying to capture what he sees with these quick marks. The shading gives real form to the buildings. Look how the lines of the roofs slope down sharply, like a hand-drawn letter "A." The marks feel repetitive and slightly uneven, giving the impression of thatch. The trees behind are scratchy, like he’s trying to get down every detail, every leaf! I wonder if Shilling worked on-site or from memory. The marks are immediate and confident, as though he knew exactly what he wanted to capture. Artists like Shilling show us how to look closely at the world, and how to translate that into something new. Each artist borrows and learns from others who came before them, and I like how that creates this long lineage through time.