Figuren op een strand 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this pencil drawing of figures on a beach, and just look at how the marks are smudged. It’s like he’s captured a fleeting moment, as insubstantial and shifting as the sand itself. I can almost feel Vreedenburgh standing there, squinting in the sea air, trying to pin down the hazy scene. The lines are tentative, searching, like he’s not quite sure what he’s seeing. What I love about a sketch like this is that it’s more about the process of looking than about capturing a perfect image. He’s feeling his way through the scene, responding to the light and the forms, and leaving traces of that searching on the paper. You can see in his marks the influence of Whistler, maybe some faint echo of Impressionism, and you know these artists are all in dialogue with each other, trying to find new ways of seeing. For me, this drawing becomes about the joy of looking, the pleasure of trying to capture something so ephemeral, and the understanding that sometimes it’s the searching itself that’s the most rewarding part.