Geknielde aardappelrooister c. 1884 - 1887

Curator: What strikes me immediately about this drawing is the sense of quiet labor, the kind you feel more than see. Editor: Indeed. We’re looking at a work titled "Geknielde aardappelrooister," or "Kneeling Potato Harvester," a pencil drawing created by Willem Witsen sometime between 1884 and 1887. You can find it here at the Rijksmuseum. Curator: It's incredible how Witsen captures such depth of emotion with just a few strokes of the pencil. I mean, look at the figure; you can almost feel the weight of the earth and the strain in her back. I see life and sorrow all at once. I wonder, you know, about her story... about everyone's, really. Editor: Technically, the drawing’s composition emphasizes a strong verticality countered by the diagonal line of the woman’s posture, drawing the eye toward the act of harvesting itself, potatoes half unearthed or yet untouched on the vertical embankment where she's kneeling. Note how Witsen uses varying pressure on the pencil to differentiate textures and create a sense of depth in what could have been a flat, monochromatic rendering. Curator: Yes, there is some technical mastery there! But to me, this sketch is like finding an old photograph—fleeting, almost blurry at the edges of my memory. You’re there with her in the field as it appears, digging deep. It feels intimate, like a shared moment. Do you ever look at old things like this and get a sudden image in your mind? Editor: I can see that it invites introspection, although one could analyze Witsen’s use of light and shadow as a semiotic device to communicate social stratification through this genre scene… Curator: Or we could just imagine the sun setting behind her, turning the field into a memory she keeps even as her aching joints begin to ache just a little less with nightfall. For me, it captures so simply something real and shared about this place at this time. Editor: I can certainly see why the mood speaks to you.