Zeilboten op een rivier 1905 - 1910

Willem Cornelis Rip made this small pencil sketch of sailboats on a river. Look how lightly Rip laid down the graphite; the marks are tentative, searching for form and place, right? I bet he was out in the landscape when he made this. I can imagine him outside, squinting at the light on the water. On the left, a tree stands, nothing more than a suggestion of a tree. On the right, boats float. The water is still. Rip used the bare minimum of means to conjure a whole world. Sometimes, the quickest gestures are the most evocative. With very little information, he’s managed to communicate so much. It makes me think about Morandi's etchings, or Twombly’s scribbles. It’s all connected!