Arbeiders op hooiwagens bij een schuur 1913 - 1917

Alexander Shilling made this pen drawing of workers on hay wagons by a shed, we’re not sure when. You can tell it was made with a quick hand and a keen eye. It makes you think about the act of painting itself, of an artist standing there, shifting and sketching, their intuition alive. I wonder what Shilling was thinking as he scratched the hay into existence with these marks? Maybe he wanted to convey the heaviness of the labour involved, or maybe he just saw the scene as he passed and was arrested by it. Either way, look at the physicality of the lines, thin but dense, the hatch marks creating texture. It reminds me of other sketchers like Van Gogh, always working, always looking. Artists are in a constant conversation, a call and response across time. The best art is embodied expression, it invites ambiguity, it allows for multiple readings.