Bomen aan een waterkant c. 1909s

Alexander Shilling drew 'Bomen aan een waterkant' with a soft pencil in a sketchbook—a kind of portable studio, you might say. I can imagine Shilling standing at the water's edge, sketchbook in hand, his eyes flitting back and forth between the trees and the page, trying to capture the essence of what he sees. Look how he's rendered the scene with these repetitive hatching marks, like he's feeling his way through the forest one line at a time. He uses short, confident strokes to build up the forms of the trees, so you can almost feel the texture of the bark and the weight of the branches. The trees on the right side of the book are rendered in a darker hue, with softer, more confident strokes. It gives a sense of the trees looming over the water. It reminds me of the work of other painters like Courbet or Corot, who were also interested in capturing the beauty of the natural world. It shows how artists have been in conversation, constantly inspiring one another's creativity. I love how Shilling embraces ambiguity, inviting us to interpret his drawings in our own way.