Zittende figuren op het strand c. 1920

Johan Antonie de Jonge made this drawing of figures sitting on a beach with graphite and watercolor. I love how tentative and provisional these marks are. The artist is feeling their way into the scene, trying to pin down the essentials with a few economical lines. There's a kind of vulnerability in leaving the underdrawing so visible, like the artist is saying, "Here's how I'm seeing this, but it's just a sketch, just a feeling." I feel like this drawing wants to be a Bonnard, or a Vuillard. I wonder if De Jonge knew their work? He would have been working at the same time as them. You can see him grappling with the same questions of intimacy and light. I imagine him there, squinting in the sun, trying to capture the fleeting moment with a few strokes of his pencil. Like all artists, De Jonge is in conversation with the past and future of painting, each mark building on the last.