Reukgras, timoteegras en honinggras before 1893

Curator: So simple, yet somehow it pulls me right into the countryside. Editor: It’s a humble work for sure. These are studies, or at least appear to be so. We’re looking at a pen and ink drawing called "Reukgras, timoteegras en honinggras"—Sweet vernal grass, Timothy-grass, and Yorkshire Fog, to give the English. Created by Willem Wenckebach sometime before 1893, and currently held at the Rijksmuseum. Curator: Yorkshire Fog! It does *feel* rather British in its understated elegance. I mean, it's literally just some grasses rendered in ink, but there's a starkness, almost an intensity of observation, that is very appealing. What draws me in—excuse the pun—is how seemingly effortless each blade appears. Editor: I think that comes down to Wenckebach’s engagement with naturalism. While this wasn't considered to be fine art at the time, the symbolic link between nature and divinity still endured. The artist used simple ink lines to record details but captured that ethereal quality that naturalists revered. There's a kind of scientific reverence embedded there, wouldn’t you say? Curator: Definitely. Each carefully drawn line hints at a larger, more complex web of life. The fact that these particular grasses are specified—fragrant vernal, timothy—that specificity connects them to fields and farms. Think of their ecological function; fodder for animals. It really grounds the work. It gives presence to the mundane and in doing so gives voice to the voiceless. Editor: And that simplicity, ironically, makes it timeless. We still see these grasses. Fields look like this today, even after so much industrialization. There is that sense of persistence, that eternal quality, to the drawing’s delicate and very mortal forms. That contrast gives the drawing some extra potency for me, the fleeting and eternal pressed on a single page. Curator: I agree wholeheartedly. I had not anticipated being moved by three grasses in ink today, but here we are! Editor: Such is art. The smallest of subjects can sometimes spark the biggest thoughts.