Gezicht op Rotterdam vanaf het water 1910

Simon Moulijn made this view of Rotterdam from the water with graphite on paper. It's all about how you build up an image from marks, isn't it? The texture in the clouds comes from tiny, soft marks made by the graphite. Look closely, and you'll see how he contrasts this with the long, horizontal strokes depicting the water. That difference in the marks gives you a sense of distance, of space. I'm thinking that a softer pencil has been used for the clouds, and a harder pencil for the lines in the water. Maybe he used a putty rubber to pull out areas of light to get the sky to glow. I think of someone like Vija Celmins, who uses graphite in a hyper-realistic way to make images of the sea. Here, Moulijn does something similar, but with a lighter touch. There's a sense of possibility in all those grey tones, you know? It's up to you to decide what you see there.