Drie spelende kinderen aan de vloedlijn c. 1928 - 1930

Otto Verhagen made this pencil sketch, called ‘Three Children Playing at the Water’s Edge’, and you can really see the traces of his hand in the hurried mark making. The figures are quickly drawn and only partially realised, yet they are full of movement, captured for a fleeting moment. I love the way the artist has not belabored the piece; there are faint traces of other marks in the upper right and along the horizon line. I wonder what he was thinking, or what the setting was like, or what the light was like. The figures are full of play. They could be watercolors by Eugène Boudin, capturing fleeting moments on the beach. It's the immediacy and directness that I find so compelling here, so alive. There's a real sense of energy and freedom in the way the image is composed, and like all great art, it raises more questions than it answers.