Met vracht beladen boot op het water 1890 - 1946

This pencil sketch of a boat was made by Cornelis Vreedenburgh, although we don’t know exactly when. What’s striking is the way the boat looms out of a space that’s only lightly suggested. The density of the pencil marks shifts dramatically, creating a kind of sculptural form with shading. There’s a real sense of process in how Vreedenburgh has built up the image, from the tentative lines that define the distant structure, to the much darker marks that give the boat its weight. Look at the stern of the boat, and the way the artist uses densely packed lines to describe its curves and volume, almost like a topographical map. The marks are raw, almost like the artist is thinking through the subject as he draws. It reminds me a little of Philip Guston’s late drawings - in both cases, there's a sense of searching, of using the medium to explore the subject rather than just represent it. It’s this embrace of ambiguity that makes the work so alive.