En havbugt med sejlskib og badende kvinder 1908 - 1911

Othon Friesz made this pencil drawing of a bay with a sailboat and bathing women, but when, we don’t know! I wonder what Friesz was thinking when he was conjuring this scene in graphite on paper. Perhaps it was a study of the sea with a quickly sketched sailboat at sea; an anecdote that became more complex and rich with the addition of figures at play, and dark, imposing cliff faces to either side. The surface shimmers through the varying pressure of the pencil, the direction of the marks giving the image a wonderful feeling of depth and animation. Was he thinking of Delacroix as he sketched the figures, loose and free? Or of Courbet when he described the weight of the rock? What about his contemporaries? We artists, we are always thinking and making in relation to one another, across time. This drawing feels like an exchange of ideas and a negotiation of different ways of seeing and experiencing the world.