Figuur, mogelijk op een kade c. 1909s

This is a spread from a sketchbook by Alexander Shilling, and it looks like he worked with pencil. The marks are very light and feel like a fleeting glance, like a thought caught on paper. On the left, there's a sense of something architectural, maybe a building or a dock. On the right, figures emerge from the lines, perhaps people working or waiting. The texture of the paper is part of the image, it feels immediate and intimate, like a private moment made public. The marks on the right page, see how they cluster and then drift off, forming figures that dissolve back into the ground? It’s almost as if Shilling is showing us the act of seeing itself, how we pull shapes and stories from the world around us. I am reminded of Daumier's sketches; both artists use a similar shorthand to capture the essence of a scene. Ultimately, art is a conversation, a way of seeing that keeps evolving. There's no one right answer, just a constant process of looking and thinking.