Eltz castle in the winter 1901

Bernhard Mannfeld made this drawing of Eltz Castle in the winter, though we don’t know exactly when or with what medium. There’s something so great about an image of a medieval castle rendered in a restrained palette of greys, browns and whites. The process of making the drawing becomes really apparent. You can see the artist building up the image layer by layer. Look at the broken tower on the left of the image, how he’s used repeated marks to suggest the rough texture of the stone. These small marks feel full of energy and bring the surface alive. It’s a delicate balance, this kind of landscape drawing. Mannfeld is clearly interested in the architecture of the castle and the surrounding landscape. But it's also about the surface and the materiality of the drawing. It reminds me a little of the drawings of Agnes Martin, in the way it finds a kind of sublimity in a restricted range of marks. It’s a reminder that art is often about what you leave out, as much as what you put in.