Landschap met bomen en een hek 1834 - 1911

Jozef Israëls created this drawing, "Landschap met bomen en een hek," using graphite. Israëls was a leading figure of the Hague School, a group that sought to represent the everyday lives of the working class and rural populations in the Netherlands. The artwork is a landscape featuring trees and a fence, composed of layered graphite marks. The fence may represent a literal boundary, but it also suggests a social barrier between different classes. There is a sense of melancholy, a key theme in Israëls’ work, arising from the recognition of such social divisions. Israëls, who was of Jewish descent, aimed to bring attention to the hardships faced by marginalized communities. "Art should not be merely a feast for the eyes, but an appeal to the heart," he once stated. This landscape can be viewed as a reflection on the emotional and material conditions of rural life, and perhaps as a symbolic expression of the barriers faced by those on the margins of society.