Boerderij in de sneeuw 1929 - 1930

Lodewijk Schelfhout captured this farm in the snow using etching techniques. I see it like a drawing made with the world’s fanciest ballpoint pen. You know, the kind you get as a gift and are almost too precious to use? It's all in shades of grey and white, giving you that quiet, winter afternoon vibe. I imagine Schelfhout bundled up, maybe with a flask of something warm, trying to capture that biting cold and the stillness of the snow. What I mean is, how do you trap that feeling of crisp, cold air, that blanket of white that muffles all the sounds? I love the bare trees with their spindly branches reaching up, it’s like they’re tickling the sky. They remind me that even in the dead of winter, there’s still life waiting to burst out. Artists are always in conversation, riffing off each other, echoing ideas across time. There’s something about that quiet, watchful stillness that reminds me of other artists who were also looking for a way to capture a feeling, not just a picture. In the end, it’s all just marks on a surface. But somehow, those marks start talking to each other, and to us.