Gezicht op het Höllengebergte met sneeuw 1926

Reijer Stolk made this view of the Höllengebirge with snow as a woodcut. The image is distilled to its essence. A landscape rendered in stark black and white. It's a print, so of course it's flat, but within that flatness, there's a real sense of volume. The mountain, built up from these angular marks, feels substantial. Stolk uses these small white lines to suggest the snow on the mountain's peaks. It's almost as if he's carving the light itself. What I like about this piece is how the textures feel very honest and connected to the process. You can really feel the cut of the knife and the grain of the wood, it's really raw. It reminds me a little bit of some of the early German Expressionist woodcuts, like something by Emil Nolde. They're both tapping into this really direct, visceral way of making images. It makes you realize that art isn't about making something perfect. It's about letting the process, the material, and your own hand speak.