Koppen van een man en een kind 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this drawing, Heads of a Man and a Child, with pencil on paper. The hatching feels exploratory, like Vreedenburgh is thinking through the form as he’s drawing it. There’s something so tender about these soft, smudgy marks. Look at the top head, the way the hair is built up with these tiny, almost scribbled lines. You can practically feel the softness of a child's hair. The artist leaves the faces unfinished, almost like clouds. It's so much about the process of finding the form. The sketch reminds me of the work of Paula Modersohn-Becker, who also used a broken line to define the volumes and shapes of her subjects. It’s a reminder that art is never made in isolation, but is rather an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time. The openness of the drawing suggests that meaning is never fixed, but is rather something we negotiate and discover through experience.