Vrouw in een koeienstal 1848 - 1888

Curator: Anton Mauve’s drawing, "Vrouw in een koeienstal," or "Woman in a Cowshed," completed sometime between 1848 and 1888. You can currently find it here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: It feels… raw. The lines are so immediate, you can almost hear the scratching of the pencil on the paper. Stark and a bit gloomy, yet there’s a certain honest charm. Curator: I agree. It really emphasizes the physical realities of agricultural life. Notice how Mauve employs pen and pencil to delineate the structure of the cowshed? You can almost feel the rough texture of the wood and the density of the air. Editor: It's less about the woman and more about her work, wouldn't you agree? Look how her form blends into the background. She's just another part of this agricultural process, her labor becoming another raw material. It forces one to think about class and economics within art. Curator: Precisely! He presents her labor, and it is quite fascinating. Think of Millet's "Gleaners," but perhaps less romanticized. The soft application gives it a gentler look and, strangely, more approachable quality, a quality absent from high art. The humanizing quality shines in his choice of medium; I think if it were oil paint it wouldn't express this. Editor: It's the humbleness of the pencil that gets you. What's particularly interesting is that Mauve doesn’t shy away from the gritty aspects, depicting farm life beyond picturesque aesthetics, focusing more on material realism. Curator: Indeed! It reveals the underlying infrastructure necessary for art and all aspects of human production, truly showcasing the symbiotic and symbiotic exchange among all people of society. There’s an elegance here, in the sheer honesty. Editor: A perfect intersection, really. It invites you to consider where the cowshed really exists-- on a material plane of life, rather than simply existing as artistic expression.