Vergeten landschap 1978

Editor: So, here we have "Vergeten landschap," or "Forgotten Landscape," a 1978 print on paper by Harrie A. Gerritz. The composition, with its geometric forms and earthy tones, evokes a sense of both nostalgia and perhaps a slightly unsettling stillness. What stands out to you when you look at this piece? Curator: Ah, Gerritz. What I see is a visual poem. Notice how he plays with memory. It is not quite reality, more of a half remembered place, like a dream slipping away. The geometric elements provide structure, almost like the remnants of a rigid, modern world, yet they’re softened by the natural landscape, creating this beautiful tension. Does it resonate with any place familiar, or even from memory? Editor: I hadn’t really thought of it that way, as a blurring of reality. Now that you mention it, it reminds me of driving through farmland as a child. So… are the minimalist lines suggesting maybe power lines or something? Curator: Possibly. I tend to think more about them representing forgotten connections. Look at how they float above the landscape, disconnected and apart. It’s almost as if he’s saying the modern world exists alongside the natural one, yet the two rarely meet, leading to the forgetting. That single cow reminds me of early cave painting too! Editor: Interesting. I like that idea, this intersection of the ancient and the modern leading to this sort of collective amnesia about nature itself. Curator: Yes! What do you think the artist felt? Did he celebrate that or mourn it? Editor: Hmm. I initially read this artwork as calming, even. But the longer we discuss, the more I realize I was drawn to that unsettling stillness, that slight tension you mentioned earlier. Curator: Well put. Art opens like a blooming flower when we have conversations like these, doesn’t it? There are just some things that we would never find on our own!