Landschap 1881 - 1927

This drawing was made by Johan Antonie de Jonge, but we don’t know exactly when. What a feeling to see marks like these, to imagine him outside, with his pad, doing a landscape. See how the left-hand side is thick with lines and the right-hand side is faint, with almost no lines? I bet that’s the real view: the landscape on the left, where he was making a drawing of something he saw. And the writing on the right are his thoughts, words, and ideas… maybe even a little poem or two. I like to imagine the artist looking, then making the marks, then thinking, then making more marks. De Jonge is in a back-and-forth with himself, letting the landscape lead him, and then letting his thoughts lead him. Artists do that, you know, we talk to ourselves, we get inspired by one another, even across time. It’s nice to think of this drawing as part of a really long conversation.