Gezicht op vulkaan Bromo te Java 1918

Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp drew this ‘Gezicht op vulkaan Bromo te Java’ with pen in ink. Look at the hatching! Nieuwenkamp is really working that pen, almost like a printmaker. The whole thing is built up with tiny marks, a zillion little decisions that together give us this brooding landscape. You can almost feel the heat coming off that volcano, right? It’s interesting how he frames the whole scene with this soft, rounded rectangle. It’s not quite a window, but it does give you the sense of looking into another world. See those tiny figures down below, trekking across the volcanic plain? They give a sense of scale, but also of adventure. It reminds me a bit of the Hudson River School painters, like Frederic Church, who were also obsessed with capturing the sublime power of nature. Except Nieuwenkamp does it with this incredible, obsessive mark-making. It's a world away, but so alive!