Aangemeerde boten aan een kade 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this sketch of boats moored on a quay with pencil on paper. It’s so immediate, isn’t it? I can almost feel the artist holding the pad, quickly trying to catch the light and the forms. The pencil work is scratchy, urgent. The artist is trying to get something down fast before it disappears. I imagine Vreedenburgh standing there, squinting at the scene, trying to capture the essence of the boats and the quay. What was he thinking about? Was he just trying to record what he saw, or was he also thinking about composition, about the interplay of light and shadow? You can see the hand move, how the tone is built up through small marks. There’s a real intimacy here. It’s like a little visual poem, a quiet moment captured in pencil. It reminds me of other plein air artists. There's a lineage here, an ongoing conversation about how we see and how we record what we see. I hope it inspires you to make your own mark.