Landschap met bomen te Exloo c. 1904 - 1912

This is 'Landschap met bomen te Exloo,' a landscape with trees made by Ferdinand Oldewelt at an unknown date. The surface of this drawing is built up with marks, layers of graphite, an openness to rubbing it out, changing your mind, a constant back and forth. See how the light and shadow on the trees are so intensely worked. Look at the trunk of that tree in the foreground, where the marks are darkest, like the deepest thought. There is a kind of honesty to the medium and its method. You can almost see the artist deciding whether to go darker, or whether to let the light in. It reminds me of Cezanne’s watercolors, where you can see the grain of the paper and the negative space working with the positive to create the structure. I think of these landscapes as a conversation, an exchange of ideas about seeing, and being.