Uitzicht op zee vanaf het dek van een schip c. 1936

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this drawing of the view of the sea from a ship's deck sometime in his lifetime. The graphite strokes on paper are so immediate, like he was just trying to capture a fleeting moment, and there's something so lovely about that—like the way the eye skims the horizon, registering the masts, the rigging, the vastness of the ocean. I can imagine him on that boat, the smell of saltwater, the rocking motion, sketching furiously to pin down the essence of the scene before it shifts. He’s not fussing over details, just laying down lines, hatching in shadows, trying to describe the way light filters through the rigging. The texture is so minimal, yet it speaks volumes. It reminds me of other artists who chase the ephemeral, like Turner with his seascapes, or even some of Cy Twombly’s scribbled notations. It's like they're all in this big conversation across time, trying to figure out how to translate the world into marks on a surface. And isn’t that the magic of art? How a few simple gestures can evoke a whole world of feeling?