Studieblaadje met een oude man met zijn hond, twee staande meisjes en een manskop before 1917

This sketch was made by Matthijs Maris, we don’t know when, using pen and ink. It’s like a little world he’s conjured up! The density of the marks in the landscape shows a layering of pen strokes to create depth and shadow. This feels like a moment, captured and recalled at once. It feels like the opposite of slick – you can see the artist thinking. The ink creates a delicate surface texture. The quick, repetitive strokes build up the forms of the trees and figures, but never quite resolve into perfect clarity. There's something so human about that imperfection, the way things emerge and recede. The landscape is gestural, and the figures are rendered with the same shorthand. Look at the two girls. They seem to float on the page, anchored by a few confident lines. Maris’s brother, Jacob, also made tonal landscapes. Both brothers evoke a certain mood, a kind of dreamy melancholy, which feels very characteristic of Dutch painting. Ultimately, though, it’s about how we keep the conversation going. It's not about answers. It's about the ongoing dialogue that art enables.