Naaldbomen bij hek 1826

Adrianus van der Koogh rendered this work, *Naaldbomen bij hek* (Coniferous Trees Near a Gate), in pen and brush with gray ink, at an unknown date. Van der Koogh was working during a period of great social upheaval, with the reverberations of revolution and empire spreading throughout Europe. He focused on landscapes. This was a genre often coded with notions of national identity, yet, it also provided an opportunity to explore the relationship between nature and human presence. Here, the artist frames a natural scene—two tall trees dominating the composition—through a human intervention: a fence. One might consider the boundaries we impose on nature and each other. What does it mean to create a division in what is, essentially, a shared space? And how does that division shape our perception of that space, and, indeed, of ourselves? "The challenge of art is to see through those veils" said Barnett Newman, "to see and state the absolute truth." Van der Koogh invites us to reflect on the truths, absolute or otherwise, that we find in the spaces we inhabit and the ways in which we choose to define them.