Vissende man in een roeiboot 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this graphite drawing of a man fishing in a rowboat, with simple marks on paper. It feels like an immediate capturing of a scene. You can imagine Vreedenburgh sitting by the water’s edge, sketchbook in hand, watching the world go by. Maybe he was thinking about how the light was hitting the water, or the way the boat gently rocked back and forth. The lines feel kind of tentative, like he was feeling his way through the scene, trying to capture the essence of the moment. You can almost see the sunlight glinting off the water, and feel the gentle breeze. It makes me think about other artists like, say, Philip Guston, and his late-in-life return to figuration, using a similarly rough and immediate way of drawing to create cartoonish figures. There's something so human about seeing the artist's hand at work, the way they wrestle with the image, and the imperfections that emerge. It’s all about capturing the fleeting moments of everyday life.