Schepen bij Quiberon 1927

Lodewijk Schelfhout created this work, ‘Schepen bij Quiberon’, with pen and brush in ink. I can almost see the artist there, in Quiberon, with his materials, maybe balancing his board on his knee, trying to capture the light on the water just so. Did he like the jagged rocks in the foreground? Did he see them as a natural frame, drawing our eye to the boats in the distance? The texture of the paper feels important here. It’s not just a smooth surface for an image, it's part of the image itself, like the weave of a canvas showing through thin paint. I’m really drawn to the sky: those clouds are so light, so ephemeral, barely there at all. I can imagine Schelfhout capturing them quickly, not wanting to lose that moment. It makes me think of other artists, like Whistler, who were also trying to capture fleeting moments of light and atmosphere. There’s a real conversation happening here, across time and space, about what it means to see and to record what we see.