Heuvellandschap met kerk 1922

Henri Braakensiek made this drawing of a church in a landscape, probably on paper, and probably with graphite. The strokes are really what get me in this piece. They aren’t labored over, but quick and scratchy, like a thought being worked out on the page, a landscape remembered rather than one that’s being copied. I’m thinking a lot about the water. It’s like Braakensiek didn’t want to define it too much. It’s kind of a wash of horizontal lines, scumbled and scribbled. That part of the drawing really resonates because the piece as a whole seems more about mood than detail, and it reminds me a little of Edvard Munch. It's not about getting the scene perfect, but about the feeling the scene evokes. I’m not saying it’s a landscape of angst, but the drawing certainly leans into art's ability to suggest feeling, which is always more interesting to me than any kind of fixed meaning.