Straat 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this graphite drawing, titled ‘Straat,’ sometime in his career. It’s all about the suggestive power of the line, the way a few marks can conjure a whole world. The texture here is fascinating – that rough paper, the way the graphite sits on it, sometimes dense and dark, sometimes barely there. Look at the upper part of the image; the lines almost vibrate. The artist uses hatching to denote depth, and the pressure of the pencil varies, giving a real sense of volume. The blank areas, the white of the paper, are just as important as the marks themselves, suggesting light and air. Vreedenburgh reminds me of a less frenetic version of Cy Twombly, in the way that both artists allow the process to be so visible, each mark a record of a decision, a thought, an action. But this work is unique; it captures a moment, a feeling, an atmosphere, and invites us to complete the picture with our own imagination.