Landschap, mogelijk een duinlandschap 1881 - 1927

Johan Antonie de Jonge made this drawing, possibly a dune landscape, with graphite. I really love the simplicity here; you can feel the artist exploring the scene with a sort of restless energy, each mark building up the space. The texture is lovely, almost like the graphite has been rubbed into the paper, creating these soft, blurred edges. And look at the way he uses horizontal lines in the foreground, they give a sense of depth but also flatten the space, like a stage set. My eye keeps going back to the cluster of trees on the left, this dark, dense mass that acts as an anchor. It’s like a little world in itself, full of hidden details and secrets. The whole thing feels like a memory, hazy and incomplete. It puts me in mind of Guston’s landscapes of the late 60’s, though obviously very different. Both embrace the imperfect and provisional as a space for meaning.