Silhouet van een stad en een vrachtwagen 1890 - 1946

This is Cornelis Vreedenburgh's 'Silhouette of a City and a Truck,' made with pencil on paper. Just looking at it, I can imagine Vreedenburgh's hand moving, sketching, rethinking, and searching for the essence of this urban scene. There's a kind of raw energy to the marks, like the city and truck are emerging right before our eyes. He's really playing with line quality here, going from the hard, structural outlines to the loose scribbles, giving it a wonderful sense of immediacy. I think he's trying to catch a fleeting moment, the soul of the city. It’s like he is saying, "here it is, a city with a truck." Just like that. He's really embracing the physicality of the medium here; you can almost feel the paper and pencil. I bet you could find similar marks in work by artists like David Hockney or even Cy Twombly, those kinds of spontaneous gestures. Artists are always riffing off of each other. For me, this work embodies the uncertainty and excitement of making art, reminding us that there's beauty and meaning in the process of searching.