Abklatsch van een krijttekening 1890 - 1946

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this print – titled "Abklatsch van een krijttekening" – using chalk, but what’s especially interesting here is that the image is reversed, like a mirror image. I imagine Vreedenburgh working away on the original drawing, carefully layering chalk to build up tone and texture. Maybe he was outside, capturing a building, or perhaps the interior of a room. Then, he transferred the image, probably onto another sheet of paper, creating this ghostly echo of the first drawing. The chalk is thin and delicate, allowing the image to be visible but faint. It reminds me of the way we often only see things partially, or how memory works, where clarity is never fully present. This piece sits in the lineage of the artist’s ongoing engagement with the world, with his rendering of space, and his attempt to make these intangible aspects of seeing and remembering concrete. Vreedenburgh is in conversation with every artist who has ever tried to capture their world in drawing.