Boerenerf in de sneeuw 1923

Otto Hanrath made this print of a farmyard in the snow, using a dark ink that seems to want to smudge at every turn. It’s all about the layering of marks, how they build into something solid from something so loose. Look at how the textures feel like they’re almost collapsing. That rickety fence on the left, for example. It’s just a collection of scratchy lines, but somehow it holds together. Or the hay stack behind it – a dense, scribbled mass, but you can still feel its bulk, its weight. And the snow itself, it’s not just a blank space, it’s full of tiny, nervous marks, as if the artist was afraid of leaving it empty. It gives the feeling of the process taking precedence. There’s a kinship here with Käthe Kollwitz in the subject and also with the kind of mark making you see in Edvard Munch’s prints. It’s like they’re all part of a conversation about how to convey the weight of the world with the simplest of means. Art is a dialogue. It’s an invitation to add your own voice to the mix.