Landskab med palmer, Cannes 1939

Edvard Weie made this drawing of Cannes with pencil on paper. Look at the lightness of touch, the sparse, searching lines, the kind of squinting that an artist does to find the essential forms. I think of him there, maybe sitting in the sun, trying to capture the feel of the palms, the buildings, the light. You can almost sense his hand moving quickly, trying to keep up with his eye, a little back and forth like a seismograph. It is a study in simplification, reducing a complex scene to its bare bones. These lines dance and suggest. You have to piece it together for yourself. It reminds me of the way Giacometti drew – all tentative and questioning – or even some of Matisse’s line drawings. It is the feeling that is important here, not the perfect rendering of reality. And isn’t that what drawing, what painting, is really about?