Gezicht op de Drommedaris te Enkhuizen 1938

Huib Luns made this view of the Drommedaris in Enkhuizen in 1938, using pen and ink. Look closely, and you’ll see the paper itself is part of the story. It's got a kind of off-white, warm tone that makes the whole scene feel like it's from another time. The ink is delicate, precise, but it also feels almost shaky – Luns seems to be searching for the real form of the tower. Check out the way he renders the water. It is alive, shimmering with movement. It’s not just a reflection, it’s as if the water has its own life, responding to the solid forms of the architecture. This little drawing reminds me a lot of the work of the American artist Charles Burchfield, who was also working at this time. He created these almost hallucinatory watercolors of buildings and nature. Both artists use an almost obsessive mark-making to convey the feeling that everything is alive, vibrating, in constant flux. In art, the questions are often more interesting than the answers.