Pad in een landschap 1923

Alexander Shilling made this pencil sketch in a landscape, and it feels like he’s working right alongside us, right? I can imagine him there, moving back and forth, figuring it out, composing, smudging. The composition is structured around a road receding into the distance. The trees are rendered with an economy of line, so full of air, capturing the light and airy feel of the day. The marks are so light and provisional that they give the feeling that any moment, the breeze might pick up, and the whole thing could blow away! Shilling's focus on light and atmosphere reminds me of Impressionist painters, like Monet, and the way they captured fleeting moments in nature. Each artist builds on the work of the previous generation, and Alexander Shilling, here, joins that long, ongoing conversation. He takes it and transforms it in his own unique way.