Sailing boats in front of mountains, and two sketches of a standing and a walking man, Marseille 1916

Albert Marquet sketched these boats and figures in Marseille with ink on paper, and the process is everything here. It’s all about gesture. The ink is applied so freely, so sparsely. You can almost feel the scratching of the nib against the page, the way his hand must have moved. Look at the mountains in the background—just a few, quick strokes. They are like a shorthand for landscape. The walking man on the right: so few lines, but you get the swagger, the coat billowing out. The whole image is just a collection of these beautiful, efficient marks, and they come together to create a sense of place, and movement. It reminds me a little of Matisse, who also had this incredible ability to distill form down to its essence. These two are kindred spirits, turning seeing into pure visual poetry. Art isn’t about answers, it's about these conversations that spark across time and artists.