Bomen 1870 - 1931

Curator: Here we have a sketch called "Bomen," simply "Trees," created between 1870 and 1931 by Willem Bastiaan Tholen. It's a quick landscape captured with pencil and ink, and it now resides here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Immediately, it feels so fleeting and wistful. There's a nervous energy in those scribbled lines, as if the artist were trying to capture the trees before they vanished like a dream. Curator: That's perceptive. Tholen was deeply invested in impressionism, attempting to pin down the fleeting essence of nature through quick, suggestive marks. The landscape becomes more about feeling than precise representation. It's a dance of light and shadow, isn't it? Editor: Absolutely. And it plays into that idea of the tree as a symbol. Through its sketch-like rendering it embodies cycles of growth, decay, of something in the moment. Do you think that the way that it’s almost nervously rendered enhances this aspect? Curator: I think you nailed it. By using that frantic, scribbled approach the art transcends simple depiction. He’s suggesting that nature can never really be captured, it can only ever be experienced in motion, and he does it beautifully through form. He captures this with ink, doesn't it evoke something primal, connecting us to earlier sketches in caves. Editor: Good point about the caves! It emphasizes nature, history and memory as connected through this simple, repeated motif of the tree. You can also see it in a psychological lens - there is that feeling of the artist confronting this thing that lives far longer and larger than himself. And then that translates to the audience too. Curator: Yes, a potent little drawing this is. It serves as both personal exploration and cultural memory. Tholen captures that beautifully here. Editor: It really gives you a lot to chew on even despite, or maybe thanks to, its small size and apparent simplicity. A little portal that collapses the idea of time in the forest.