Gezicht op Xanten, 1672 1900 - 1903

This ink drawing of Xanten, made in 1672 by the Moreau brothers, really strikes me with its panoramic scope. The horizontal composition, made on multiple sheets, is all about openness, and it invites us to wander. The delicate, almost hesitant marks, create a shimmering surface. Look at how the line varies from dark, emphatic strokes defining the architecture, to the lightest of touches in the open land around the city. There's a real push and pull here. The buildings are built up with overlapping hatching, like a dense thicket of lines, while the foreground is much more open. I see echoes of earlier Dutch landscape artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder, but also something of the later atmospheric studies of someone like James McNeill Whistler. It’s like the Moreau brothers were having a conversation across time, and inviting us to join in. What do you think?