Boslandschap 1587 - 1636

Curator: Here we have "Boslandschap," a landscape drawing dating from 1587 to 1636 and created by Coenraet van Schilperoort. It’s executed with charcoal, watercolor and drawn with delicate lines. Editor: The initial impression is ethereal. There’s a certain weightlessness to the composition, created by those layers and layers of wispy charcoal lines. Curator: Absolutely, and the choice of charcoal speaks to a tradition in Dutch Golden Age landscapes of conveying both meticulous detail and atmospheric depth. You see that attention in the way he renders the trees in the foreground and suggests a dense, almost impenetrable forest behind. What’s particularly striking is how the forms seem to dissolve into each other, reflecting a Pantheistic view of the divine inherent in nature. Editor: The application of these materials is so economical. Charcoal allowed an artist wider access since it’s made from burnt wood, a basic tool which allowed him to reach broader audiences and make works quickly, which implies an increase in consumption for the market during the Golden Age. Curator: That's insightful. And consider that the act of drawing itself—a rapid and relatively inexpensive medium—served a very important symbolic function. Through these quickly made drawings, we can read something of a larger yearning for connection with the land. Editor: Still, there’s something about this level of detail that seems almost obsessive. All those meticulous strokes! Was it a commercially viable mode of production? Or perhaps did it come out of solitary, even a spiritual, devotion to his process? I imagine how Van Schilperoort interacted with his charcoal while sitting alone outside... Curator: Yes, it certainly gives off that impression. I can also appreciate its resonance: How we grapple with the mysteries of nature and project our internal state onto what we perceive as an external experience of reality. Editor: I come away thinking about accessibility—what that medium suggests about both his relationship to landscape and his connection to his time, the Golden Age. Curator: For me, it's the quiet hum of this landscape, its enduring appeal as a vessel for projecting our own search for the sublime.