Boomstammen 1848 - 1888

Curator: Anton Mauve created this piece, “Boomstammen” – or “Tree Trunks” – sometime between 1848 and 1888. It’s a landscape, a pencil drawing currently held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. The moment I saw it, it reminded me of sketches artists dash off to clear their mind! Editor: It's incredibly gestural, isn’t it? Almost frenetic in its energy. I wonder, in terms of the history of Dutch landscape art and its intersections with colonial trade, were these simply studies, or did Mauve intend for these 'tree trunks' to say something about the Dutch relationship to its natural resources? Curator: That’s an interesting angle. For me, the marks evoke a feeling of impermanence. A forest is in a perpetual state of change and, with that knowledge, maybe these trunks weren't simply resource for economic purposes, maybe it was simply about existing. A little dark, perhaps, given how loose and free it feels. What do you think, did he want it to appear academic, almost unfinished? Editor: The immediacy speaks volumes, really. And in this period we see burgeoning conversations around industrial capitalism and its impact, its almost impossible to assume this forest is a politically neutral site. The sketch’s roughness might also act as commentary on that historical moment. There's also the absence of any human figure. Was Mauve consciously presenting a view of nature devoid of the civilizing presence of humans? Or is that absence another form of presence, imbued with all the complicated realities of power and extraction at the time? Curator: Hmm… maybe that's giving him too much credit? Still, the sketch possesses a kind of elemental truth. It's bare-bones…almost stark in its simplicity. Maybe that honesty IS what he sought to portray. Editor: I see that… And maybe what stays with me is this push-pull between something innocent, simply rendering form, against this recognition that landscapes in art have always been political spaces. So much is swirling. It's why art remains so vital, isn't it? Curator: Absolutely, even in a sketch as quick as this. It offers not just a vision of a place, but a prompt for deeper questions.