Landschap met eens schaapherder die op zijn staf leunt c. 1884 - 1887

Willem Witsen created this landscape with a shepherd in pencil on paper. It’s a quick sketch, capturing a shepherd leaning on his staff, surrounded by sheep in a vaguely defined landscape. The choice of pencil as a medium is interesting. It allows for a level of detail and shading, yet it's also immediate and easily erasable. The marks are evident, the labor unhidden. Pencil drawings, traditionally seen as preparatory studies, were becoming increasingly valued as finished works of art in this period. The material itself has an interesting class valence, pencils being associated with the accessibility of drawing as a skill. Witsen’s use of the pencil captures both the landscape and the labor of the shepherd. It invites us to consider the value of both skilled artistic labor and manual rural labor, and it challenges conventional distinctions between fine art and craft.