Twee figuren in de duinen Possibly 1908

Alexander Shilling made this drawing of two figures in the dunes with pencil on paper. It feels like Shilling was really working out something about the relationship between mark making and seeing. The whole scene is conjured up with these scribbly marks, kind of like controlled chaos. The texture is alive, like you can feel the wind and the grit of the sand. Look at how the sky is barely there, just a suggestion, compared to the very determined marks building up the land. Everything is line, even the shading. It's all energy and movement, the pencil almost vibrating on the page. I think that the landscape is very expressionistic, and the tiny figures on the horizon give it a scale that really emphasizes the space. Shilling reminds me of Gustave Courbet, who also loved to get down and dirty with his materials. Both artists remind us that art is not just about representation, it's about the act of creating, the physicality of the medium, and the way it connects us to the world.