Landschap met een pad langs huizen c. 1904 - 1912

Ferdinand Oldewelt made this landscape with a path alongside houses with graphite on paper. The initial strokes seem tentative, as though Oldewelt were feeling his way through the scene. The strokes build up and coagulate, creating a network of marks that describe form and volume. I can imagine him outside, squinting, rapidly rendering a 3D world onto a 2D surface. His eyes darting back and forth, editing, observing, always looking for information to better capture the play of light and shadow. Look at how the dense mark-making creates an almost impenetrable mass of trees and branches, whilst the path in the foreground seems to invite us into the picture plane. Perhaps Oldewelt was influenced by the Barbizon school, a group of French painters who, like him, celebrated the beauty of the natural world.