Bernried 1922

Henri Braakensiek made this drawing of Bernried in 1922 with ink on paper. You know, drawing, especially ink, is so much about the hand – the pressure, the speed. Looking here, you can almost feel Braakensiek's hand moving across the paper. The lines creating the tree on the left aren't precious. They're kind of scratchy and awkward, in a great way. There's this real push and pull between control and letting go. See how the ground is rendered with these loose horizontal strokes, it’s like he’s feeling for the form, not just tracing what he sees. It reminds me a bit of some of Guston’s more figurative drawings, that same kind of searching, restless line. Ultimately, art is a conversation across time, isn’t it? A bunch of people trying to figure things out with marks and gestures. It’s never really about the finished thing, but about the looking, the making, and the questioning.