Hut met rieten dak aan een waterkant 1892 - 1940

Henri Verstijnen's ink drawing presents a thatched hut by the water's edge, composed with a loose, expressive hand. The scene is rendered with quick, confident strokes. I like to imagine him standing there, the breeze rustling through the reeds, his hand moving swiftly to capture the essence of this rustic scene. The textures are wonderful! The thatched roof is a flurry of tiny marks, while the wooden planks of the hut are delineated with bolder, more deliberate lines. He’s not aiming for photorealism. It’s more like he's communicating a feeling, the memory of a place. Thinking about drawing, the hand is more directly connected to the brain than the brush is, and it's interesting to think of how the drawing is about immediacy. The bold strokes around the reeds in the foreground. It has an energy to it, and it's got a kind of raw, unfinished quality. Verstijnen's work reminds me of other sketchers like Van Gogh or Paula Modersohn-Becker, who each used a similar language of mark-making. Each artist is drawing on the artistic resources of the past, while forging entirely new forms of expression!