Figuren op het strand c. 1920

Johan Antonie de Jonge made this sketch of figures on a beach with pencil on paper. Imagine him there, squinting, trying to capture the light and the mood. I wonder what de Jonge was thinking as he quickly put down these marks; this isn't a highly-detailed or realistic picture, but it's got a great, ephemeral, here-gone-the-next-minute feeling. The figures themselves are ghostlike, vertical marks. I can almost feel him searching for the figures, their clothes, their presence. And then, the more grounded horizontals of the beach furniture. Think of all the other artists he might have been looking at, maybe envying, maybe in competition with. A drawing like this is never really finished; it's a moment in a longer, ongoing conversation. I love that it embraces the provisional.