Prins Hendrikkade met de Nicolaaskerk te Amsterdam 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh sketched Prins Hendrikkade with the Nicolaaskerk in Amsterdam with graphite on paper. I can imagine Vreedenburgh standing on the side of the canal, squinting in the Dutch light, quickly trying to capture the scene in front of him with the side of his pencil; the page still open in his hand. See how the pencil lines are so delicate, almost tentative. The spire of the church rendered with so much care, but then the foreground reduced to a series of near-abstracted shapes. The tree looks like a scribble, but you can tell it's a tree. It's as if he's trying to find the essence of the scene, rather than a literal depiction. Painters are always looking at each other’s work, even across time, trying to figure out how to translate the three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional surface. And this drawing is a great example of that. A conversation between the eye, the hand, and the subject.