Landschap 1834 - 1903

Curator: Johan Hendrik Weissenbruch created this artwork, "Landschap", sometime between 1834 and 1903. It’s a drawing rendered with pencil, and we currently have it housed here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: You know, even though it's just pencil on paper, it feels vast, somehow. Like looking out over the moors on a particularly gloomy day. It’s minimal, almost stark. Curator: The minimalist aesthetic emphasizes the natural qualities of the graphite and paper. Consider how the choice of materials influences our understanding. Weissenbruch was known for his devotion to the Dutch landscape. This drawing employs the language of realism. You see his lines giving dimension. Editor: Absolutely. It makes me think about how reliant Weissenbruch was on a humble material like pencil. All the sketches—layers and layers of observation built from simple, readily available tools. Curator: It reflects the broader accessibility of art creation at the time, enabling artists to move away from strictly commissioned work towards more personal expressions. A lot of it was the development of industrialized methods of production making materials easier to source, expanding the market for the drawings and other works produced with these media. Editor: I imagine him constantly with a sketchbook, documenting the ephemeral beauty around him. I wonder if he struggled, like I sometimes do, to find beauty in the everyday grind of working. Curator: It really humanizes him as a working artist, and by extension, emphasizes the value we ascribe to that labor now. Editor: Thinking about it makes you notice so much in the actual craft itself—the differing pressure of the strokes, and how that brings different trees in the field to life. Curator: Precisely, from a production standpoint, you have an intimate interplay of human and environmental factors represented by graphite on paper. Editor: Seeing his art now in our present helps us notice how far things have changed regarding artistic labour but maybe also how much remains eerily the same in a capitalist setting.