Weg tussen bomen, rechts een brug met een hek 1872 - 1939

Curator: This is "Weg tussen bomen, rechts een brug met een hek," or "Road between trees, a bridge with a fence on the right," a pencil drawing by Egbert Rubertus Derk Schaap, likely created sometime between 1872 and 1939. Editor: Oh, it's beautifully melancholy. That graphite is whispering a story, isn't it? Something about memory and quiet perseverance. I feel like I'm standing on the brink of a fairytale I can’t quite grasp. Curator: Fairytales are built on the narratives and symbols that echo through time. Think of the road itself, here – an archetypal journey, yes? Schaap’s soft, sketchy lines might suggest a fragile, perhaps fleeting moment. Editor: It does feel very dreamlike and fragile, the pencil lines, how the shapes form on the page. It's got this unfinished quality as if Schaap wants us to complete it ourselves. Curator: Note the contrast. The bridge offers a precise geometric interruption – that constructed form suggesting dominion and control over the untamed natural flow. A potent reminder that human progress is often imposed onto nature, whether in art or otherwise. Editor: I feel like a traveler paused there. Schaap has frozen that instant where nature and the traveler take pause, like in between breaths, everything else suspended around them in graphite mist. The mind starts wondering… is that figure alone, or meeting someone on the road? What thoughts occur in stillness? Curator: Exactly, stillness opens up possibility. The landscape here serves almost as a mirror, reflecting our inner landscapes and their endless possibilities for encounter. I notice it recalls old ideas of the Sublime too. Editor: Sublime and lonely…I do love that combination! All thanks to humble pencil, isn’t it, showing grand stories that whisper if we stay silent with it awhile. Curator: I quite agree, our relationship with what art reflects, says, can be very personal; I can certainly reflect on this work much more.