Figuren op een kustweg langs bergen c. 1936

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this drawing of figures on a coastal road near mountains using graphite on paper. Look at those marks, made by hand. You can sense the artist observing the world around him, trying to capture the essence of the scene. I like to imagine Vreedenburgh outdoors, his eyes scanning, selecting, and translating what he sees onto paper. It feels intimate. Notice the scribbled shadows suggesting depth and form and the almost shorthand way he indicates the figures on the road. It’s fascinating how a few quick lines can convey so much. I remember once trying to sketch a similar landscape and realizing how hard it is to simplify without losing the feeling of a place. Vreedenburgh really gets it right. I wonder what else Vreedenburgh was working on at the time. All artists are in conversation with one another, through and across time, each building on what came before, challenging it, playing with it. Each mark is a kind of note in a visual dialogue that stretches on and on.