Notitie 1900 - 1931

Editor: This is a sketch titled "Notitie" by Willem Bastiaan Tholen, made sometime between 1900 and 1931. It's done with pencil and ink on paper and is part of the Rijksmuseum collection. It looks like a page from a sketchbook. I find the landscape barely suggested, with faint marks; how would you interpret this work? Curator: This piece, precisely because of its unfinished state, provides us access to the artist's process. The very sparseness carries potent symbolism. What do you see suggested in this delicate rendering of landscape, a place and then a suggestion of horizon, faint? Editor: I see that it's suggestive. It looks like he's experimenting, trying to capture a feeling of the landscape with very minimal marks. The title suggests, however, that is just a 'note', a mental notation. Curator: Exactly! A "note," and a notation on not only what is there, but perhaps something internal the landscape sparks, something the artist needed to record. Notice the quick, almost frantic lines at the bottom that suggest movement. These aren’t merely lines on paper, they hold memory. How do those marks speak to you? Editor: The marks at the bottom, I see them! They convey speed, or even wind… maybe the changing weather is part of what he's noting? And that word on top -- 'gefisceerd' -- might that describe the feeling he's trying to convey? Curator: Precisely! You’re uncovering layers. Consider how fleeting moments are preserved through these symbols, a whisper from the past made visual and what cultural memory they stir. A quickly jotted notation captures something so essential, something so important it needed recording in order not to be forgotten. A simple thing, truly profound. Editor: I see what you mean, it’s like he's captured not just the landscape, but a whole moment, a whole feeling associated with it. The symbolism in simple mark-making makes it so complex and meaningful. Thanks, I've really learned something new by noticing those details.