Familiealbum van de familie Boekhoudt 1920

This drawing, ‘Family Album of the Boekhoudt Family’ is by H. Buringh Boekhoudt. You can see it was made with pencil, the tone is quite subtle and grey. The marks are very controlled and precise, nothing is out of place. Look at the way the artist has rendered the trees! It's a kind of shorthand, a set of repeated gestures that build up the form. Each mark is deliberate, economical, not at all haphazard. This control extends throughout the piece, creating a sense of calm and order. The drawing reminds me a little of Agnes Martin, although Agnes Martin went for extreme abstraction, there is a similar sense of a quiet, internalised world, one in which the process of making is as important as the final product. In both cases, it is not about what is depicted but the way the marks make you feel. The artist sets parameters and then works within them to create a mood. And like all good art, you can read it in many different ways.