Dorpsgezicht met zeilschip in een gracht 1912 - 1914

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this small pencil drawing of a village scene with a sailboat in a canal. The way the artist uses short, quick marks to define the buildings and the water gives the piece a sense of immediacy. I’m really drawn to the surface of this drawing. The paper isn’t pristine; it’s got tears around the edges, like it was ripped from a sketchbook. Look at the reflections in the water, how they're just these vertical scribbles, mirroring the houses on the bank. There's a beautiful economy in the mark-making that really appeals. Vreedenburgh’s work reminds me of some of the early landscape sketches by Mondrian, where you see a similar kind of searching, a trying-out of form with simple lines. It's a reminder that art is often about the process, the exploration, and less about the final, perfect image.