Riverbank with windmill 

Curator: This is Jacob van Strij’s "Riverbank with windmill", housed here at the Städel Museum. It’s rendered with ink, chalk, and watercolor on paper, reflecting a moment of daily life in a Dutch landscape. Editor: It evokes such a stark, almost desolate feeling. The muted colors and spindly, bare trees create a wintery atmosphere. Despite the figures present, there's a sense of loneliness about the scene. Curator: Interesting. Considering the time, it probably demonstrates the close relationship that people maintained with their immediate environments; think about reliance on watermills for grinding grains. And of course the importance of waterways for transport of material goods, demonstrated here with people seemingly crossing to or from the city. Editor: That's true. The windmill itself looms large, a clear symbol of industry and sustenance. But consider the human figures. One strains pulling the cart, the figures in the boat labor at the oars, their work perhaps amplified by their diminutive forms—do they feel insignificant under its shadow, overshadowed by the machine and nature's indifference? Curator: We know van Strij worked outside—en plein air— and one thing that immediately stands out is his confident mark-making with a variety of materials. See how he's built up tones, created texture, almost scumbled the ink to give form and volume to that stand of trees, contrasting against more spare underpainting across the water? He clearly values the application process. Editor: Yes, and his specific choices lend themselves to symbolic interpretation. The water, for example, the very lifeblood of their commerce, becomes almost menacing here; and perhaps the people pulling their cart will fail in their journey. Those bare trees and muted earth tones might signal not just the season, but a kind of societal barrenness or hardship. Or, perhaps it evokes acceptance of an unchanging landscape and environment as well. Curator: Right. Van Strij used everyday, local scenes to demonstrate societal changes and to record how ordinary people survived at a moment when machine began replacing manual means. He probably ground his own chalk! That direct relationship with raw material underscores an emerging culture. Editor: Precisely. So the images offer far more than just pastoral charm or winter melancholy. Curator: Thank you. By delving into its production, materials, and figures, we understand this piece documents people living on the edge, facing an impending social transition. Editor: Agreed. By looking at his art more closely, one appreciates how symbolic imagery and attention to material converge to tell nuanced stories about nature and our complicated place in its order.