Landschap met een boerderij 1881 - 1927

Johan Antonie de Jonge created this landscape sketch of a farm using graphite on paper during a period of significant social and economic change in the Netherlands. De Jonge was working at a time when the Netherlands was still largely agrarian, yet industrialization was beginning to reshape the social landscape. In this work, the stark contrast between the almost blank left side of the diptych and the heavily worked right side hints at a tension between erasure and creation, absence and presence. The farm, sketched with dark, almost frenetic lines, evokes both a sense of place and a feeling of unease. De Jonge may be reflecting his anxieties about the disappearing rural way of life, or perhaps his own sense of displacement within a changing society. Consider the emotional weight carried by these rural landscapes, emblems of a national identity rooted in the soil, even as that identity was being challenged by modernity. De Jonge’s sketch captures a moment of transition, a silent yet powerful meditation on loss, and the search for belonging.