Tweede pagina van een dagboek van een reis door Noorwegen Possibly 1895 - 1897

Curator: This appears to be a page from a travel diary, dated possibly between 1895 and 1897, by Hendrik Herman van den Berg. It's a mixed-media piece combining drawing and ink on paper. It's rather unassuming, almost like a found object. What strikes you about it? Editor: I'm intrigued by how personal it feels, like stumbling upon someone's private thoughts. But the handwriting is difficult to decipher, which makes it hard to connect with. I’m wondering about its significance as a visual object. How do you interpret the page itself as a kind of symbolic artifact? Curator: Consider the act of journaling itself. In this period, before widespread photography, a travel journal wasn’t just a record of events; it was a way to possess the experience. Each stroke of ink, each observation carefully penned, transforms the foreign landscape into something personally meaningful and enduring. The difficulty in reading it now only deepens the mystery. What kind of journey do you think this recounts, or perhaps what symbols and motifs are contained within? Editor: I see what you mean, it is very immediate, and makes it a record of experience but without relying on the images themselves. That makes the words more than a mere retelling. Maybe it's less about literal accuracy and more about the feeling of the place. Is that a common theme with travel art from this time period? Curator: Absolutely. Many artists used travel journals to explore their emotional and psychological responses to new environments. Look at how the tight, almost claustrophobic script fills the page. It might represent a sense of overwhelm, perhaps a struggle to capture the immensity of the Norwegian landscape in words. Do you think that adds a symbolic element? Editor: Yes, it does. Knowing a little more about the potential historical context does give me a different outlook! I will certainly read early travel journals differently. Curator: Precisely! Each line and inscription holds clues about memory, identity, and how we seek to understand the world around us. Editor: Thanks. I hadn't considered all the layers of meaning embedded in what seemed like a simple piece of writing.