Zeilboten op het water 1890 - 1946

This is Cornelis Vreedenburgh’s sketch of sailboats, held at the Rijksmuseum. It’s all done with these quick, wiry marks. I can almost feel the scratch of the pen on paper. I’m thinking about Vreedenburgh out there, maybe on a pier, squinting at the light, trying to capture the essence of the boats and the water with just a few strokes. You know, it's funny how a simple line can suggest so much movement. Look at how he uses these little dashes to hint at the ripples on the water, and the way the masts are all tilted at slightly different angles. I feel like he wanted to get the basic structure of the boats down as fast as possible! It reminds me of some of Twombly’s scribbly drawings, where the act of mark-making itself becomes the subject. It's like Vreedenburgh is in conversation with all these other artists across time, each trying to figure out how to translate the world onto a flat surface. It reminds me that art is always a process of discovery. You start with an idea, but the act of making takes you somewhere new.