Boerderij before 1931

Else Berg's woodcut print shows a farm rendered in bold black and white contrasts. I'm imagining her carving into that woodblock, wrestling with the material itself. There's a directness here, a kind of graphic punch. I can relate to the impulse to strip things down, to find the essential forms. It’s the constant push and pull every artist experiences. How do you say something meaningful with just a few marks? The way she’s handled the light and shadow reminds me of some early Expressionist woodcuts. Those artists were all in conversation with each other, reacting against the old ways of seeing and trying to find something new. You can see them trying to get to the heart of the matter, cutting away all the unnecessary stuff. For Berg, this reduction wasn't just a style, but a way of seeing the world. It's a reminder that painting, in all its forms, is a way of thinking, of feeling, of making sense of the chaos around us.