Gezicht op het landgoed bij Paleis het Loo 1907 - 1909

Simon Moulijn made this lithograph of the estate near Paleis het Loo; it’s a landscape built up through a process of accumulating tiny marks. The amazing thing about lithography is how it can mimic the textures of drawing. Look how Moulijn uses a whole range of grays to create this really expansive sky. The clouds don’t feel fixed, they feel like they’re in the process of transforming, puffing up, dissolving. It’s like he's captured a fleeting moment. Then your eye drops down to the dark horizontal band of trees, the broad horizontal of the grass. There’s one dark tree right in the middle, a kind of full stop in the composition, it makes the landscape feel endless and contained at the same time. It makes me think of those Dutch landscape painters, like Jacob van Ruisdael, who were also masters of capturing the light and atmosphere of their surroundings. Except Simon Moulijn does it with a stone! It reminds you that art is really about this ongoing conversation across time, people experimenting with different tools and techniques, trying to find new ways of seeing the world.