Gezicht op de molen Rijn en Lek te Wijk bij Duurstede Possibly 1906 - 1909

Willem Witsen made this drawing, titled 'View of the Rijn and Lek Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede', with a graphite pencil. It feels very immediate. The artist really committed to mark-making as a process of discovering the image through a density of hatched lines. The texture of the paper is visible, it's not trying to hide anything. There is a real sense of transparency here. The windmill emerges out of the surrounding landscape as if it is growing out of it. Witsen builds up the image of the mill through a kind of controlled frenzy of marks. The graphite looks almost like it's been rubbed into the paper in places. The great American artist, Cy Twombly, used a similar approach to drawing. In his work, like in Witsen's, the messiness of the line becomes a kind of atmosphere. A way of connecting the image to the world around it. It's about energy, not precision.