Vrouw met een kind op haar arm op een brug 1902

Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst made this lithograph of a mother and child on a bridge at an unknown date. What strikes me about the image is how the mark-making feels both precise and tentative. The texture created by the lithographic crayon gives the image a soft, almost dreamlike quality. I keep coming back to the way the water is rendered, with these little circles that could be raindrops or reflections. They create this sense of movement and depth, like the surface of the water is alive. There's a figure to the right of the bridge too, crouched in the bushes. The tonal range in the piece is limited and the greyscale enforces a pensive feeling. Holst shares an affinity with other symbolist artists such as Whistler, who evoke feeling through the use of atmospheric conditions and careful mark making. Like all good art, this print embraces ambiguity and invites us to bring our own experiences to it.