Jongens bij een wintervoorraad appels c. 1910 - 1937

Willem Wenckebach made this ink drawing, 'Boys with a Winter Supply of Apples', on paper. It's all about lines, isn’t it? Lines describing shapes, lines suggesting shadow, lines that make you feel the cold air of the storage room. Look at how Wenckebach varies the thickness of his lines. See the confident strokes that define the boys’ jackets, versus the finer, scratchier lines that build up the background. It’s like he’s thinking out loud with his pen. He layers them to create depth and texture. And then there are the apples, a chaotic pile rendered with quick, looping marks. Each apple has its own little shadow. It makes me think of Courbet, how he used a similar density of marks to describe objects. Maybe Wenckebach was looking at Courbet's work? Anyway, it's all part of art's big conversation, right?