Oosterse man met een wandelstok c. 1936

Here is Cornelis Vreedenburgh's sketch, made with pencil on paper. It's like a quick thought, a fleeting impression of a man with a walking stick, rendered with such economical lines. The beauty is in the simplicity, right? A few strokes here, a curve there, and suddenly, there's a figure emerging from the blankness of the page. Look at the way Vreedenburgh suggests the form with the bare minimum of information. The lines aren't precious or overworked; they're just there, doing their job, capturing the essence of the subject. There is a directness to the line, a lack of fussiness that I find appealing. It reminds me of some of Matisse’s line drawings, where he could convey so much with so little. It's like they're both saying, "Here's what I see, take it or leave it," and you can't help but be drawn in by their confidence. It really feels like a conversation between artists, a dialogue across time and space about what it means to see and to represent the world around us.