Boerderij in heuvellandschap 1925

Curator: What strikes me first about this print, besides its rather diminutive scale, is this overarching sense of a story untold. Editor: Exactly! It has the feel of a half-remembered dream, a snapshot from the collective unconscious. What we have here is "Farmhouse in a Hilly Landscape", etched in 1925 by Jo Bezaan. You can find it here at the Rijksmuseum. It looks to be made with some sort of etching and drypoint on paper? Curator: Yes, you are correct. The medium lends itself well to the overall composition with its fine lines and shading. I keep feeling that wind; don’t you? This almost palpable atmosphere is achieved, as far as I'm concerned, via masterful employment of atmospheric perspective and through clever application of shading. But talk to me, where does your eye go first? Editor: Directly to the lonely figure trudging along that indeterminate path in the lower-left foreground; burdened, stooped under some invisible weight, nearly lost amidst the vertical blades of grass... Yet that prominent tree to the right – isn't it grand, that solitary giant watching over it all, simultaneously protective and a touch melancholic? Curator: Absolutely. The looming branches frame the little farmhouse in the distance, nestling below the rolling hills. See how the dark, sinuous lines draw our eye deeper into the landscape and give it that certain expressive weight? The entire piece breathes with… is it loneliness, hope, or just a quiet acceptance? Editor: I think, strangely enough, all three? Its subtle textural variations enrich the otherwise monochrome composition. Bezaan guides our vision strategically using just shadow and light to heighten a subtle drama. Each stroke seems precisely placed to intensify feeling of isolation. Curator: Isolation for sure, but maybe isolation isn’t such a bad thing, judging by that sturdy little house on the rise... Editor: In summary, this print encourages introspection. While simple in its construction and plainness, Bezaan reveals much with an apparent "honesty," as an exercise in seeing and feeling nature. Curator: It is as if she allows us to look into a private memory, and then invites us to project it into our own reality.