Landschap 1900 - 1931

Willem Bastiaan Tholen made this landscape drawing with pencil, and it’s just so immediate, you know? I really get a sense of the artist working right there, in the landscape. You can almost feel the wind. The smudges and scribbles, they're not mistakes, but part of the process, like he’s thinking through the image, letting it emerge from the page. There is something very honest about this approach to mark-making. Look at the lower part of the image, those scribbled lines. Are they bushes? Or the edge of the water? That zig-zag, it’s like a code for ‘edge’ or ‘surface’. Tholen isn't trying to trick us into seeing a perfect scene; he’s sharing his way of seeing, his way of figuring things out. It reminds me of Cezanne, who also used very particular marks, almost like tiles, to build up his landscapes. Art is always in conversation with itself, always asking questions, never giving simple answers.