Weidelandschap met hooiwagen 1867 - 1935

Maurits van der Valk made this landscape, Weidelandschap met hooiwagen, with pen and ink. It looks like he was just vibing and seeing what happens. The entire picture plane is so quiet. It’s almost like he’s trying to get out of the way of the landscape. I wonder if he feels like a bit of an interloper when he’s sitting there drawing? The ink work feels labored, like he’s trying to capture the movement of the field. You can see how one tiny mark leads to another, and then another. It's so linear. I’m thinking about other artists who work in this vein, like Agnes Martin, who was also committed to a kind of quiet, repetitive mark-making. I wonder if Van der Valk knew her work? Probably not, but that's the thing about art. Artists are always talking to each other, across time and space.