Landschap met kerktoren c. 1875 - 1940

This print, Landschap met kerktoren, by Octavia Cornelia Suzanna Hofstede de Groot, looks like it came into being slowly, with layer upon layer of delicate markings. You can imagine the artist building up the image bit by bit. I'm thinking about Hofstede de Groot, and how she might have felt looking at the church tower, deciding how to capture it, how much of it to show and how much to leave hidden. The textures of the trees around the building are really fantastic, especially the way the light hits them. She’s got all these little strokes in the foreground, like the earth itself is made of energy. It reminds me of some of Corot’s landscapes, or maybe some of the etchings of the Dutch Golden Age. But it’s very much its own thing too, this little world. Artists are always borrowing from each other, you know, like magpies. Ultimately, it's about expression, finding a way to make a mark that says something about how you see the world, and how you feel about it. There’s something hopeful about this one.