Gracht met een ophaalbrug te Amsterdam 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this sketch of a canal with a bascule bridge in Amsterdam with graphite on paper. The whole thing has this provisional feel, as though the artist just dashed it off. The image is filled with this frenetic energy, the strokes are a kind of shorthand, a code of the artist’s own making; like he has an urgent need to capture the subject before it disappears, or the light changes. Imagine Vreedenburgh standing there, quickly making marks, responding to what he sees. A kind of conversation with the scene in front of him. The marks cluster and pull apart again, giving the image depth and variation, the black on off-white creating all the contrast. It reminds me of some of Twombly's notebook works. Artists are in an ongoing dialogue, each riffing off the other across time. We see the world through each other’s eyes.