Bos met gekapte bomen 1881 - 1927

Johan Antonie de Jonge made this drawing, Bos met gekapte bomen, with pencil on paper, but when it was exactly is unclear. It looks to me like he was thinking through something, working out a problem. I love how the marks are so present, not hidden, like you often see in academic drawings. It is almost as if the artist is saying, “look, here is how it’s done!” I mean, if you look closely you can see that this is not about the end result, but more about getting to the end result. It’s about the doing. The texture that he gets from the pencil is kind of gorgeous, raw. And I love the way he’s not afraid to leave a lot of the paper bare. It's a conversation between the pencil and the paper, a kind of dance. It reminds me a bit of Klimt's more sketch-like works, that same emphasis on line and form. It's that kind of incompleteness that leaves room for our imagination.