Landschap met een beek c. 1901 - 1927

Johan Antonie de Jonge made this landscape with a brook, probably in the early 20th century, using graphite on paper. Look how the marks build up, almost like a storm of energy focused on capturing a fleeting moment. There’s this urgency in the way the graphite scratches across the surface, a real sense of the artist trying to pin down something that’s always moving, like memory itself. See how the texture is rough, the lines are raw, and the surface feels alive with the movement of the artist’s hand? I’m drawn to the way the strokes pool together in the lower half of the work. They feel like they’re dragging downwards, like water but also like the pull of gravity, a counterpoint to the light-filled sky. It’s reminiscent of Symbolist landscapes and also the work of Klimt, but in monochrome. It shows how art is always echoing, repeating, and riffing off what came before. It invites us not to define, but to feel.