Haag met bomen en schuren 1939 - 2009

Kees Stoop made this drawing of a hedge with trees and sheds, but when? Sometime in the twentieth century. You can see the paper, probably laid flat on a table, and Stoop leaning over it with a pencil, probably quite soft. The lines swarm. He's thinking, I guess, about the light, maybe the cold. Those little sheds in the background look so vulnerable in the snow, and the trees huddle together like they're trying to keep warm. The marks build up to describe the scene, but they also give you the sensation of a winter's day. I love the way Stoop uses the pencil to create different textures, from the soft, blurred lines of the snow-covered roofs to the sharp, scratchy lines of the bare branches. It's like he's not just drawing what he sees but also what he feels. There's a real intimacy in this work, a sense of the artist being there, in that moment, observing and recording the quiet beauty of the everyday. Stoop’s work is in conversation with other landscape painters like, say, Van Gogh, finding poetry in the ordinary. It reminds me that painting is an act of exchange, an invitation to see the world anew.