Heuvelachtig landschap met bomen 1939 - 2009

Kees Stoop made this hilly landscape with trees using pen in ink. I love how the whole thing is built up from tiny marks, it’s like he’s feeling his way through the scene, one little scribble at a time. Up close, you can really see the texture he's created. The ink isn't smooth, it's scratchy, like he was impatient to get the image down on the page. Look at the way he builds up the trees in the mid-ground, those dense clusters of lines, it feels like you could reach out and touch the leaves. Then, he leaves areas of the paper blank, giving a sense of light and air in the open land. For me, the whole piece has a real intimacy to it, it reminds me of drawings by Guston, both artists letting us see the world in their own, very particular, way.