Eenzame schuur voor zonsopgang 1975

Curator: Right now, we're looking at "Eenzame schuur voor zonsopgang" – "Lonely Barn Before Sunrise" – an etching from 1975 by Harrie A. Gerritz. It’s part of the Rijksmuseum collection. What's your initial take on it? Editor: It's quietly haunting. All these horizontal lines give off a sense of vastness and the pale blue sky… almost like a half-formed thought hanging there in the ether. There's an unreal quality about this scene, but those lights in the windows make the whole image very intriguing, even a little hopeful. Curator: You know, it strikes me that Gerritz, with his background rooted in the Neue Sachlichkeit, often uses the barn—the schuur—as an archetypal, almost existential motif. A vessel standing stark against an otherwise indistinct landscape, you might say. Editor: I agree, but even that feels intentional, an assertion of permanence against the backdrop of an indifferent natural order. Notice how the barn’s structure echoes so many fundamental symbols, of shelter, the triangle pointing upwards – reaching for something more perhaps, or the windows, a pair of eyes and beacons reflecting life, inviting light within and casting warmth outward. It hints at a soul, if you will. Curator: An isolated soul perhaps. But then, perhaps that loneliness, reflected in the artwork’s title and subject, encourages reflection, even on something as ubiquitous as our own mortality? Editor: Absolutely. The beauty, and sorrow, in observing this particular moment is also in knowing it cannot last. Daybreak’s inevitable arrival transforming shadows and, perhaps, banishing some ghosts along with them, and perhaps ushering others in to remain with this lonely old building. Curator: Well said. This piece feels to me like an enduring visual poem of transience, memory, and hope, distilled into deceptively simple lines. Editor: I leave this solitary little corner and this lone structure of endurance, strangely optimistic somehow, its inner glow casting far more hope into the unknown of our personal darknesses and early light, now.