Landschap 1881 - 1927

This landscape, by Johan Antonie de Jonge, is an intriguing sketch. The whole thing feels like a set of quick notations, an open ended process. The first thing you notice is this collection of marks that suggest the overall scene. Look at how he uses line to create form and space, with some words and phrases scrawled across the page. It’s all in pencil, so you can feel the graphite on the paper, that real sense of mark making as thinking. It is amazing how the artist can capture the essence of the landscape with just a few lines. See that cluster of lines on the left that forms the tree, it’s loose, but full of energy. The words scattered around act almost like visual cues, reminders of what he’s seeing, how it makes him feel. The landscape becomes a kind of personal map of observation and recall. I’m reminded of Cy Twombly’s drawings, where writing and image blur. Both artists embrace the idea of art as a playground for exploration, where meaning is never fixed but always unfolding.