Rocky seashore 1926

Konstantin Bogaevsky made this pencil drawing of a rocky seashore at an unknown date. Look at the sky, which is rendered with dense, smudged strokes, transitioning into sharper, more defined lines that carve out the landscape. I can imagine Bogaevsky tilting the pencil this way and that, using its side to shade broad areas and the tip to etch fine details, coaxing light and shadow from the paper. I wonder what he was thinking as he rendered these rocks and sparse trees? What kind of conversation was he having with the greats like Caspar David Friedrich, or even closer to home, with his symbolist contemporaries? The process of drawing is a form of inquiry, and the artist's choices about texture and line invite us into this process. In the end, it is like a long conversation between artists, and each gesture of the hand leaves traces of thought, feeling, and intention.