Kustgezicht c. 1920

This is a coastal view by Johan Antonie de Jonge, made with pencil on paper. Look at the marks all going one way, like rain. It’s a kind of cross-hatching that builds tone and mass. I can imagine him standing there, squinting in the sea air, trying to capture the essence of the coast—the weight of the stone against the vastness of the water. And the sky! It looks like he’s really going for it. It makes me think about the Dutch tradition of landscape painting, like Jacob van Ruisdael, but with a twist, less about detail and more about feeling. You know, the artist uses the surface, the texture, and the direction of the marks to communicate something about the place and his experience of it. It's almost as if the ocean and the sky are having a conversation right there on the page. We are constantly building on the ideas of those who came before us, and bringing our own perspective to the conversation.