Gezicht op bastion Oud-Molen (westzijde) 1933

Simon Moulijn made this graphite drawing on paper of the West side of the Oud-Molen bastion at an unknown date. Look at the multitude of marks that Moulijn has layered to create this scene. I can imagine him outside in the cold with his paper, thinking what it would have been like to have been there when it was active. To me, these lines aren’t just descriptive. They’re alive. I get the sense that the artist experienced the weight of the architectural structure but also its impermanence in nature. What does it mean to spend so much time looking, and then trying to reproduce what you see in this painstaking way? I think the artist is trying to come to terms with something: what was, what is, and what will be. It’s like he’s asking himself, how do we make sense of it all?