Huizen en een hooistapel aan een landweg c. 1935 - 1936

This image shows a drawing of houses and a haystack along a country road, made by Cornelis Vreedenburgh. Look at the hatching in the gable, the haystack, the trees. The pencil travels back and forth, back and forth, like the artist is trying to find the form, searching for its weight. I feel this. Sometimes I think I am the pencil, building up a form, a feeling. Does the artist see the world in little lines? Is that what they are trying to communicate? Think of the great masters of hatching like Van Gogh or even the graphic novelist Aline Kominsky-Crumb. These artists create the feeling of light, but also anxiety, loneliness, maybe even pleasure. It’s all in the mark, in the back and forth, in the looking. Let’s keep looking!