Meanderende rivier 1939 - 2009

Kees Stoop made this drawing, Meanderende rivier, with chalk on paper, but we don’t know exactly when. The chalk makes such lovely soft marks, and he’s used it to capture a landscape with a slow moving river, really simply. It’s almost like he’s feeling his way through the landscape, groping with the chalk to pull out what’s there. I really love how he’s built up the bushes on the left, with these tight clusters of short, dark lines. It feels like a real, physical thing, like you could reach out and touch it. The way the river is just blank paper is also interesting. It’s like he’s saying, "Okay, you know what a river looks like, I don’t need to draw every single ripple." It’s so economical, but so evocative. I wonder if he knew the work of Guston, who was so good at this kind of poetic mark making. Anyway, this piece is just beautiful in its simplicity.