Zeegezicht met bebouwing in de verte c. 1920

Johan Antonie de Jonge made this seascape with graphite, the sky heavy with clouds and the sea a flat, grey plane. You can almost feel his hand moving, sketching and rubbing, maybe on site, trying to capture the scene quickly. The marks are sparse but intentional, each stroke defining the horizon, the buildings in the distance, and the subtle reflections on the water. It’s like he's sifting through the visual noise to find the essential structure of the landscape. I imagine de Jonge, squinting against the glare, rapidly building up the composition line by line, wrestling with the ephemeral nature of light and shadow, probably thinking about other painters of the sea and sky and how to respond to them. It feels like a conversation with Turner, or even Whistler, but with a distinctly personal touch, full of ambiguity, so we can find our own meaning in it.