Onderstuk van een watermolen bij Gouda Possibly 1911 - 1916

Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp made this work, *Onderstuk van een watermolen bij Gouda*, as an etching – it’s a print, really. I imagine the artist deeply focused as he worked the plate, scratching and biting the surface to make this intricate scene of the watermill near Gouda. Look at all the detail! The thatched roof, the stonework, the figures – it’s pretty amazing how much information he gets into such a small space. You can feel how committed Nieuwenkamp was to the ethos of the etching – the need to get things exactly right, but without losing the sense of a handmade world. I imagine him thinking about the great Dutch landscape painters before him, like Jacob van Ruisdael, thinking about light and atmosphere. He’s part of a conversation, paying attention to how other artists found their way into landscape – the Old Masters, of course, but also his contemporaries. It’s a conversation we’re all invited to join.