Gebouw en een bemande boot 1880

Curator: Ah, a chance encounter with Louis Apol's "Gebouw en een bemande boot," a drawing from 1880, housed right here at the Rijksmuseum. What's your initial take? Editor: Bleak. And beautiful. The sketch-like quality almost feels unfinished, but that sparseness, particularly in the gray tones, evokes a profound sense of melancholy and solitude. It speaks of a very human impermanence. Curator: I love that, impermanence! It does have that "fleeting moment" captured feel. Knowing Apol, who was practically obsessed with the frozen landscapes of the Netherlands, I see him searching here. Searching for… something. It feels like he’s figuring out how to capture the essence of winter's stillness, rather than precisely depicting the scene. Editor: It reminds me a little of early impressionist experiments with light and shadow, this capture of the fleeting, like you say. Although his frozen landscapes, while stunning, have been interpreted by some critics as romanticizing harsh conditions. Are we perhaps viewing labor, and exploitation even, through rose-tinted glasses in this sketch? Curator: Oh, interesting. Perhaps. He definitely wasn’t averse to painting beautiful winters far removed from the real struggles. And, yes, there’s a raw energy here, like he’s wrestling with the forms – the building, the boat, the human figure within it. A kind of deconstruction before the final work. It’s a little peek behind the curtain of 19th-century landscape art. Editor: It's striking how the industrial building almost dwarfs the boat. Is it romanticizing industry, minimizing human experience on the water? I wonder how folks would see themselves in relation to all these sharp angles? It’s difficult to be sure, I can hear both possibilities screaming from the paper, as it were! Curator: The ambivalence… Yes! Exactly! It's that very tension that keeps us looking, isn't it? He's caught between his romantic sensibilities and this nascent awareness of a changing world. Editor: Indeed, and it is, I think, so worth grappling with. It encourages us to remember that the past is anything but frozen. Even if it depicts snow and ice. Curator: Ah, a beautiful summation! This sketch isn't just a depiction of a place; it’s an echo of an artist grappling with his own changing perspective. Editor: Exactly. And by extension, a challenge for us to question what we assume about both landscape, work and identity, past and present.