Willibaldsburg 1936

Jacob Happ made this drawing of Willibaldsburg with pencil on paper. It's so immediate. There’s a real sense of the artist trying to capture a moment, a fleeting impression. The textures he creates with simple pencil strokes – the rough, almost scribbled marks that define the trees and the castle walls – it all feels so real. The way he builds up tone by layering those marks, it’s almost like he’s sculpting with the pencil. You can almost feel the breeze and the dampness in the air. Look at how he renders the clouds – just a few, loose lines, but they evoke the sky perfectly. And then there's the castle itself, looming on the horizon, a solid, imposing structure, but still rendered with the same light touch. Happ reminds me of Cezanne, who also used humble means to capture the landscape. And like Cezanne, Happ shows us that art isn't about perfection, it’s about process.