Boomrand 1939 - 2009

Curator: Kees Stoop created this pencil drawing called "Boomrand". It’s dated 1939-2009. You can find it here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Well, instantly, it's got a brooding kind of peacefulness, doesn’t it? All those bare trees massed together in simple, but strong, pencil strokes. Gives the whole thing this lovely, stark quality, almost as if it's holding its breath. Curator: Indeed. And it is so simple. Stoop uses just a pencil, this most common of artistic tools, to capture, to my eye, a timeless quality in the landscape. It draws our attention to the very act of seeing, the labor and social conventions tied to both the natural world and the tools and strategies used in its visual representations. Editor: Absolutely. There’s an honesty to that simplicity too, isn't there? Like, he's not trying to fancy it up with colors or anything. Just saying, "Here's what I saw," almost like a quick snapshot with pencil. It really invites a closer look. I can almost feel the chill in the air just looking at it. Curator: Exactly, but let's consider the timeframe: 1939-2009. That implies a protracted, perhaps even iterative engagement with the subject matter. What does this extended period of creation say about the relationship between Stoop, the material, and the scene depicted? Did the landscape itself undergo change, impacting the drawing's evolution and perhaps revealing different modes of material access? Editor: Now that you point that out, I suppose there's a hidden narrative tucked away there. All those years suggest this wasn't just about capturing a scene. Maybe it was also about observing its impermanence and evolution – and his own. You get a sense of nature not just as scenery, but a partner in an enduring conversation with the artist. Curator: And Stoop offers us that exchange through accessible materials: pencil, paper, line. Editor: Precisely. It's funny, something that looks so direct can also contain this hidden complexity. Makes you think about all the unseen work that goes into even the simplest-seeming things. Curator: The dialogue between artist, process and observer all contained in deceptively accessible forms of production. Editor: Yeah. Makes me want to grab a pencil and go sit outside, just to see what happens!