Molen in een landschap c. 1909s

Alexander Shilling made this pencil sketch of a windmill in a landscape sometime between 1859 and 1937. I'm imagining Shilling quickly filling the pages of his notebook with dark scribbled lines. You know, sometimes the energy and the mark-making of a drawing are more evocative than the subject itself. The left page feels like a receding stand of trees and a building nestled amongst them. On the right is a skeletal windmill and another bank of trees. I can feel Shilling’s interest in the textures and forms of the natural world around him. The softness of the pencil and the layering of marks create a misty, atmospheric scene. The looseness of the sketch gives it a sense of immediacy, as if Shilling was capturing a fleeting moment. It makes me think about artists throughout time, sketching the world around them, each adding their own perspective to the ongoing conversation of art.