Drie mannen 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this sketch, "Drie mannen" - Three Men - with pencil on paper. The real magic here is in the gaps, where the paper peeks through, creating a dance between what's there and what's not. It's all about that process of suggestion, isn't it? Look at the top figure, see how the lines describing the head are reinforced with hatching, but then that arm just fades into a single stroke? It feels like Vreedenburgh is thinking out loud, figuring out the form as he goes. That one little squiggle for the hands says so much. The surface of the paper becomes this intimate space of exploration. It reminds me a bit of Matisse’s line drawings, that same sense of capturing the essence of a form with the fewest possible marks. In both artists’ work, it's not about perfection, it's about the vitality of the line.