Paard en een ruiter op een landweg 1848 - 1888

Curator: Anton Mauve’s graphite drawing, “Horse and Rider on a Country Road,” dates from between 1848 and 1888 and is part of the Rijksmuseum's collection. What strikes you immediately? Editor: A sense of fleetingness, I'd say. It feels like a half-remembered image, like a dream of the countryside, rendered with incredible speed. There is such little detail and it has such weight. Curator: That's insightful. It's a very loose sketch, almost impressionistic in its capture of light and movement, long before Impressionism took hold. Notice how Mauve suggests the road and foliage with just a few lines? It's about the essence of the scene, rather than a photographic depiction. I mean look at it, you see one strong darker middle ground. It pulls you in. Editor: True. And yet, the lack of precise detail almost makes it more universal. It becomes less about *this* road, *this* horse, and more about the archetypal journey, the solitary figure moving through a landscape. What are your thoughts? I imagine this work has some deeper significance. Curator: Absolutely. The location is meaningful. We can ask what would travel look like back then? Also who had the money to get around? We might also consider its place within the artistic landscape. Mauve, although quite respected, sometimes receives shade in comparison to his cousin-in-law, Vincent van Gogh, whose work it seems in some ways to prefigure in this case. So we may look to that relationship. I find myself drawn to what it implies. What seems to be over the horizon there? A storm? Hope? Editor: It’s amazing how a few simple lines can evoke so much feeling. I love how the open composition also really seems to draw me as the viewer into the scene. As viewers, we are asked to think about that path we may wish to go down... or maybe already came from! Curator: Exactly. It is more than just a depiction, but instead asks, "What will we do with our own journeys, when they present themselves?" That may be its lasting effect on us.