Gezicht op een brug in een stad 1876 - 1951

Theo Nieuwenhuis made this cityscape in charcoal. Look at the smudgy blacks and grays of the buildings and water. I’m imagining Theo there, with the charcoal stick, moving it across the page, finding the shapes and texture. I wonder if it was cold outside? Was he trying to capture a feeling or a memory of being in this place? You can see the marks he made, like the short, choppy strokes, and the rubbed-out areas, maybe where he wasn’t so sure. It’s like he’s feeling his way through the scene. The way he’s used charcoal is so tactile. He reminds me of Whistler or maybe Redon, artists who loved to play with the mysterious effects of light and shadow. You can tell that Nieuwenhuis was looking at how light and shadow shape what we see. And somehow, he made it into something new, something personal. That’s what artists do, they show us how to see the world in a different way.