Twee boeren in een landschap 1930

Henk Henriët's print shows two farmers in a landscape; it's all shades of gray, giving it a somber, thoughtful mood. I imagine Henriët working on this piece, carefully building up the tones with his pencil or crayon. Look at the stooped figures of the men, they are carrying something heavy between them. I wonder about their lives, their daily grind. And then there's that horse in the background, grazing peacefully, oblivious to the labor in the foreground. There is an element of surrealism to this landscape – the texture of the field is reminiscent of an ocean wave, and the trees in the background are spindly and weird. Henriët’s choice of monochromatic tones strips away distraction, focusing our attention on form and composition. It reminds me of other social realist artists like Kollwitz, who used printmaking to convey the struggles of working-class people. Artists are always in dialogue with each other across time. It's like a big conversation, one artwork responding to another.