Hooioppers in een weiland 1910 - 1918

Alexander Shilling made this sketch of haystacks in a field with pencil in a sketchbook. I can almost see him there, squinting in the bright sunlight of the meadow. The light seems to blur the edges of things. The landscape is reduced to a few simple strokes – the hatching of the trees, the dark scribbles of foliage, and the curving lines of the haystacks. You can imagine Shilling capturing the scene quickly, trying to get down the essence of the light before it shifts again. The texture of the paper is visible beneath the graphite, giving the sketch a raw, immediate quality. You know, sketching like this is an exercise in looking. Shilling is not just recording what he sees, but also thinking about how to translate the world onto a page. Every mark is a decision, a way of understanding space, form, and light. It's like he's asking himself, "How can I make this flat surface feel like a real place?" And isn’t that what we all try to do?