Landhuis in een park 1904 - 1905

Simon Moulijn made this drawing of a Landhuis in a park. It’s all in pencil, or maybe charcoal, and he’s created a sort of hazy atmosphere using tiny little marks, a process of layering to make this building emerge out of the landscape. I think about artmaking as a process, a kind of building-up. Here, Moulijn hasn’t gone for bold lines or stark contrasts. Instead, he's built up the image gradually, bit by bit. The texture of the paper seems to peek through in places, adding to the sense of depth. Look closely at the trees on the left. They are almost scribbled, yet somehow they convey a sense of mass and density. It’s a reminder that sometimes the most seemingly casual marks can be the most effective. There's something almost Seurat-like in the way he's built up the image from small marks, dots even. This piece reminds me a little of Whistler’s etchings - this embracing of subtlety, this interest in the quiet beauty of the everyday. Art is like a conversation.