Boerderij in een winterlandschap 1942

Lodewijk Schelfhout made this farmhouse in a winter landscape in 1922; it's a flurry of marks made with graphite. I find the drawing to be a real testament to how much information our eyes can pick up from very few marks. The texture and color are all created by the density of the line, and the relationship of one thing to another. The landscape is conjured with tiny marks, and yet the surface feels solid and real; the trees are scratchy, but there are subtle variations in tone that make me feel the weight of the snow. Look at the bridge, for example: those little horizontal lines suggest a distance, while the marks on the trees, like a bunch of commas, pull you in. It's a lovely thing; it makes you feel the cold and the emptiness of winter, but also the beauty of it. Looking at it, I'm reminded of the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who also made evocative landscapes using monochrome tones. It shows how an image can embrace both clarity and ambiguity at the same time.