De molenaar, zakken vullend 1870 - 1923

Curator: Oh, hello! This is Willem Witsen's "The Miller Filling Sacks," a watercolor drawing housed right here at the Rijksmuseum. It was created sometime between 1870 and 1923. Editor: My goodness, what a study in grey! It has a muted, almost melancholic quality. Is the man actually *enjoying* his labor? You can almost feel the grit in the air...or is it the humidity? The gray gives an Impressionistic fog, obscuring whether this labor of "filling sacks" brings liberation, drudgery, a wage—or, I wonder, all of the above? Curator: Precisely. Witsen had a beautiful way of capturing these seemingly mundane scenes and elevating them. Note the masterful use of light – how it filters through the doorway, illuminating the figure but still shrouding the interior in shadow. There's a quiet dignity, don't you think, in his depiction of the miller? It feels far away from a straightforward pastoral aesthetic that can romanticize the same sort of occupation. Editor: Yes, dignity—or rather, a social contract is portrayed here that is a little darker than its appearance. The grayness and confined space may suggest an almost oppressive labor dynamic. I can't help but also notice that through that distant window and slice of field—a more pastoral life does beckon. Curator: That's an interesting read! Maybe it isn't romanticized because it presents reality. To me, there is no inherent sadness or gloom. The man could simply be hard at work. Editor: Fair point. Though this reading may be applied to a work like this--we mustn't lose the basic observation and wonder. How striking is it that, through a palette of grays, Witsen evokes a profound sense of place and time. Curator: And timelessness, too, I think! So often in Impressionist works such as this, which also evoke a sense of realism, they really can present a moment we can reach out and touch again and again. Editor: True. It seems to freeze both a man's reality and beckons an idea.