Boerderij in een landschap 1872 - 1931

Willem de Zwart made this landscape with a farm house probably in the late 19th century. The drawing is made with graphite, and colour pencils. You can see all the decisions, every mark of the pencils, it's not trying to trick you into believing it's something other than what it is. The light is so interesting in this piece. The artist used delicate, light colors, and thin lines to evoke an overcast day on the farm, in a time when the air wasn't so dirty. The texture of the paper is visible and is almost as important as the marks the artist made; the building is heavily outlined, while the trees in the background are just smudges. I think of Vuillard and Bonnard, who embraced the everyday in their work. Like them, de Zwart is comfortable with ambiguity, more interested in the feeling of the place than in its perfect representation.