Aanlegplaats aan een kade 1890 - 1946

Here's this sketch, "Landing Stage on a Quay," made by Cornelis Vreedenburgh, now hanging in the Rijksmuseum. I'm immediately drawn into the artist's mark-making, this network of shifting, emerging lines. I imagine Vreedenburgh with a sketchbook in hand, capturing the bare bones of a quayside scene. What was it like to stand there, feeling the air, the ground beneath, the weight of the pencil in the hand? The sketch feels provisional, more about process than product. It’s as if he's thinking through the act of looking, trying to distill the essence of the scene with a few well-placed strokes. I wonder if he was referencing the work of other artists while making this drawing, perhaps a composition by Whistler, or a tonal arrangement by Corot? Painters are always in conversation, influencing each other, borrowing and transforming ideas across time. A sketch like this is an act of embodied expression, a record of an encounter, with all its ambiguity and uncertainty.