Landschap 1900 - 1931

Willem Bastiaan Tholen made this landscape sketch in pencil, and it feels like an intimate glimpse into his creative process. I love the speed of it, as if he's trying to catch a fleeting moment in nature. The lines are so raw and immediate, with these hatched marks creating a sense of depth and texture. You can almost feel the wind rustling through the trees, or the stillness of the water, depending on your mood, right? I imagine Tholen, out in the landscape, quickly filling the page in his sketchbook. Maybe he was drawn to the way the light filtered through the trees or the shapes of the land, and he wanted to capture that feeling right away. It reminds me of Constable, who was always trying to get down the look of the clouds in the English countryside, but here the marks are so much more free. It's like he's having a conversation with the landscape, and we get to eavesdrop.