Stadsgezicht met kerktorens 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this sketch of a cityscape with church towers at an unknown date, using graphite on paper. Look at the speed of the marks! I can feel the artist's hand moving rapidly, capturing the essence of the scene with an economy of line. The architectural forms emerge from a tangle of hatching and cross-hatching, as Vreedenburgh coaxes a sense of depth and structure out of the barest of means. I wonder if the artist was trying to capture a fleeting moment or a particular quality of light? It reminds me of those quick notations artists like Philip Guston would make. These gestural marks possess an energy, a sense of immediacy that transcends the representational aspect of the image. It's like a visual shorthand, a distillation of experience into a set of essential forms. In this way, Vreedenburgh opens up a dialogue about the interplay between observation, memory, and mark-making, inviting us to contemplate the ephemeral nature of perception.