Mountainous Landscape 1901

Andreas Achenbach made this landscape drawing with graphite, and right away, I get a sense of process, you know? It's like he's feeling his way through the scene. The graphite is used to create a range of light and shadow, almost like he’s mapping out the territory. The texture is all in the strokes, layered and built up to suggest the roughness of the rocks and the softness of the foliage. Look at the way he uses short, broken lines to define the edges of the rocks. It's like he's trying to capture the essence of the mountain. The more I look, the more I think of Caspar David Friedrich. Both were trying to capture the sublime power of nature, but Achenbach's got this immediacy, like he's right there in the thick of it. Art’s an ongoing conversation, right? It’s about seeing what came before and adding your own voice to the mix. It’s all up for grabs.