Landschap met bomen en een huis 1834 - 1906

Curator: Maria Vos completed this landscape drawing sometime between 1834 and 1906. The work, in pencil and pen, is simply titled *Landschap met bomen en een huis* – Landscape with trees and a house – and it currently resides here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: The immediate feeling is almost melancholic. The soft pencil strokes evoke a dream-like atmosphere, perhaps one tinged with isolation. There’s an unfinished quality that leaves a lot to the imagination. Curator: Considering Vos’s place as a woman artist at this time, working often within constraints dictated by her gender, this sketch, taken from what appears to be a sketch book, might represent a moment of personal freedom. Editor: I am drawn to the way the tree is depicted. It’s centrally placed and its exposed roots almost grasp at the air, symbolizing grounding. Houses often represent security. Perhaps Vos, through rendering them together, presents a complex understanding of what a sense of belonging could or should mean. Curator: That's an astute observation. The tree roots as symbols of the unconscious are prevalent. How might that interplay with the house representing social structures? Did those structures nourish, or expose her in ways unique to her gender? The incompleteness here invites us to see these trees as individuals within a societal landscape. Editor: Incomplete maybe by intention? Perhaps she uses an accepted 'style', landscape, and plays with conventional imagery to create something deeply personal. Even challenging. Vos asks us to examine the symbols and look beyond traditional interpretations of nature and home. Curator: And I would even suggest we might use this as a point to look at women in rural settings at the time. How does she use her understanding to create an opening for other narratives that are just as complex and just as real? Editor: Agreed. I now read it as a celebration of the self. In those simple lines.