Boerenerf in de sneeuw 1923

Otto Hanrath made this lithograph, Boerenerf in de sneeuw, with lithographic crayon, or tusche, allowing for these velvety blacks and cloudy grays. Look at the marks, scribbled and cross-hatched, a dance of the hand across the stone, trying to capture the light in the snow. I'm thinking about Hanrath there in the cold, bundled up probably, squinting at the scene before him. Did he do a quick sketch first, or did he just go for it? He probably felt the bite of the wind, the crunch of the snow under his boots, and then tried to get it all down, this bleak, beautiful place. Notice the bare trees scratching at the sky; the simple buildings huddled together against the cold. He's doing something similar to what Van Gogh was doing, and what many others have done: documenting a moment in time and a life and place that's probably gone forever. It makes you wonder what the artist wanted to say, or what feelings he wanted to evoke. It's a conversation across time, each artist speaking to the next, an ongoing experiment in how to see and how to feel.