Huizen aan een waterkant 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this drawing of houses along the waterfront with graphite on paper. The way Vreedenburgh lays down these marks is so interesting to me, there’s this real sense of an artist thinking through a problem. The graphite is light in some areas, darker in others. Look at the roof: it’s not just a flat plane, but a series of lines that suggest texture and depth. I wonder about the speed of this thing, it feels so immediate. The texture of the paper peeks through the graphite, giving the drawing a kind of transparency. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving across the page. And then there’s that bush, scribbled in with a frenzy that contrasts with the more deliberate lines of the buildings. It’s like Vreedenburgh is saying, "Here’s the structure, here’s the chaos." Think of other artists like Guston who use line to define and defile form at the same time. I love the way this piece embraces the messy, uncertain process of art-making.