Landschap met bomen en een schuur 1933

Henk Henriët made this landscape with trees and a barn using graphite, probably in 1922. It's a drawing that pulls you in with its quiet intensity, and reminds me that artmaking is all about process. Henriët's marks are layered, smudged, and soft, creating a hazy atmosphere. You can almost feel the dampness in the air. Look at how he renders the trees—the lines are delicate, almost tentative. The graphite is dense in some areas, especially in the shed, and then fades away into a soft gray in others, like the sky. This contrast gives the piece depth. The whole piece is quite melancholic. It reminds me of the work of someone like Guston, who also embraced a kind of raw vulnerability in his mark-making. Art is never about perfect answers, right? It's about asking questions.