Duinen 1891 - 1898

Willem Cornelis Rip made this sketch of dunes with graphite on paper, sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. Graphite, in its manufactured form as pencils, was of course, a key technology for rapidly recording information. Here, Rip has used it to swiftly capture the features of this windswept landscape. You can see the marks of the graphite very clearly; the varying pressure of the artist's hand as he sought to capture the forms of the dunes and vegetation. It is particularly evident in the way he has described the fallen tree in the foreground. What’s interesting to me is how Rip has used an industrial product like the graphite pencil to represent nature, which is itself a powerful combination. By paying attention to the materials and processes, we can better understand this work as an interaction between the artist, his tools, and the environment that he sought to portray.