Paard en wagen op een straat 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this sketch of a horse and cart in the street with pencil on paper. The beauty of a sketch lies in its immediacy, its raw energy. Here, the artist uses a simple pencil to capture a fleeting moment, a snapshot of everyday life. The lines are quick, gestural, almost like a dance across the page. Notice the way the forms are suggested rather than fully defined, leaving space for our imagination to fill in the gaps. The shading is minimal, yet it creates a sense of depth and volume. There’s a wonderful ambiguity in the way the artist has rendered the horse and cart, just a few strokes of the pencil and it feels as though you are there. The composition is loose, almost casual, as if the artist simply jotted down what he saw without any preconceived notions. It reminds me of the sketches of Constable, though maybe with a touch more abstraction. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t always need to be polished or refined to be powerful.