Exterieur van een kerk c. 1888

Willem Koekkoek made this drawing of a church exterior with graphite on paper. Looking at the swift lines, you get a sense of the immediacy, the artist capturing a fleeting moment. Graphite, in its essence, is humble – a material most often associated with preliminary sketches. But its capacity to capture light and shadow is immense, and here, Koekkoek utilizes it to construct a complex architectural form. Notice the linear quality, a kind of shorthand, where marks represent the weight and scale of architecture. Consider the artist's hand moving across the page, each stroke building a sense of place. It is a dance between control and spontaneity. The way the artist used the graphite becomes almost a form of architectural rendering, as if the very act of drawing could be a means of constructing a world. It invites us to see not just the final image, but the entire process of its making.