Weiland met koeien c. 1901 - 1927

This is Johan Antonie de Jonge's "Weiland met koeien", probably done with charcoal or a soft pencil, and it's all about the energy of the line, isn't it? I love how the marks build up. Look at the foreground, how the strokes are almost horizontal, giving us a sense of the ground, and then how they change direction to define the cows. It’s like de Jonge is thinking through the drawing, letting the process guide him. The texture is amazing, isn't it? You can almost feel the softness of the charcoal on the page. And the way he's used the darks and lights to create depth, especially in the trees... It's like a dance of mark-making, so free and alive. I can imagine someone like, say, Paula Modersohn-Becker, getting into this guy. It’s this kind of honest, searching quality that makes art so endlessly fascinating. It's never really finished, just a moment in a conversation.