Huizen met zonwering over de balkons aan het Canal Grande te Venetië 1914

Willem Witsen’s pencil drawing shows houses with sunshades over the balconies on the Grand Canal in Venice. It’s like a visual diary entry, raw and immediate. There’s a tactile quality to the way Witsen uses the pencil. The lines vary in weight, some light and feathery, others dark and assertive, particularly those confident dark strokes that define the gondola and its reflection. The texture of the paper is part of the drawing; you can almost feel the tooth of the page. And then there are these notes scattered around; color swatches jotted down, ‘grey’ or ‘dark blue’. The grid he’s drawn over the surface is an interesting detail, maybe a way to map out the perspective or plan a larger painting? It reminds me a little of Philip Guston's late work, which is funny because, in a way, this is also a late work, Witsen died just a few years after making it. It's funny how some drawings, like this one, invite you to just keep looking, keep thinking, keep feeling. There’s no single meaning, just an open invitation to engage.