Dorpsstraat c. 1909s

Alexander Shilling made this energetic sketch of a street, probably in one of the many Dutch or Belgian towns he visited. Look at how the line is used here, so economically. Shilling is really just feeling his way around the page, trying to work out the composition, using line to map out what he sees. The page on the right is a riot of scribbled energy. See that long diagonal line, piercing through the cluster of shapes like a skewer? It’s like he's trying to pin down the essence of the scene with one deft stroke. And then, on the left, the faintest wash of what might be watercolor. A looser, airier impression of a distant landscape. Shilling's sketches share a certain quality with the work of someone like James McNeill Whistler, the way he implies a scene with just a few strokes. Ultimately, sketches like these are about capturing a feeling, and sharing it too.