Berglandschap met bomen 1815 - 1867

Curator: What strikes me immediately is the stark, almost brutal, simplicity. Editor: You're right, there's an unvarnished quality to it. This is "Berglandschap met bomen," or "Mountain Landscape with Trees," an etching and drawing by Willem Matthias Jan van Dielen. The dating is a bit broad, sometime between 1815 and 1867. Curator: That makes sense given the subject matter. There’s a Romantic sensibility, an emphasis on the power and indifferent grandeur of nature, especially evident in the way the artist etches these sharp lines into the rocks and trees. It gives the whole piece a powerful, almost unsettling energy, as though nature is about to come alive and overtake the scene. Editor: The process is evident, isn’t it? You can see how the artist builds the scene line by line, concentrating areas of darkness to emphasize texture and depth. The very *doing* of it is part of the meaning; it's not just a representation, it's a record of the hand. It looks like this paper supported his close observations over time. How he made marks became an exploration and then almost performative. Curator: Absolutely, and look how those stark pines stand, almost like sentinels, and then your eye is led further back to those monolithic rocks to the left – guardians, perhaps, of the landscape. I wonder about the psychology of such stark representation and what personal, inner turmoil it might convey through landscape. Editor: It is almost a bleak picture, though there is light that makes its way into the picture plane. Considering the timeframe, I'm curious about where he would have obtained the paper for the print and his access to the tools and processes for etching. Perhaps he did this work as part of his artistic studies. Curator: Or, perhaps, as a commentary of our short time in contrast to these tall mountain features? This landscape really opens itself to all kinds of projection, then! Editor: It does indeed. For me, thinking about its material origins opens up more possibilities for meaning. Curator: And for me, its suggestive forms hint at the deep mysteries within. Editor: An interplay we can all appreciate!