Huis en een molen in een landschap 1905

Willem Cornelis Rip made this drawing of a house and mill in a landscape with graphite on paper. Looking at this sketch, I’m struck by the immediacy of Rip’s mark-making. The texture is all there: scratchy lines build up to describe the land, the suggestion of foliage, and the forms of the buildings. It’s like he’s thinking through the landscape, letting his hand wander, searching for the right way to capture the essence of the scene. The sky, with those almost cartoonish cloud outlines, gives the work a lightness and a touch of humor. There is something so appealing in its lack of pretense, a quality I also see in the work of artists like Alfred Jarry, who embrace a certain amateurism as a way of sidestepping convention. It's as if Rip is inviting us to see not just the landscape, but also his way of seeing. Art is a process, not a product.