Berglandschap met naaldbomen 1873 - 1932

Wilhelmus Johannes Steenhoff made this landscape of mountains and spruces with graphite on paper. Look at the marks! The whole thing is built up from short, scribbly lines, hatching, like he’s coaxing the image out of the paper rather than imposing it. The texture feels soft, almost like velvet, even though it's just pencil. There’s a real density in the lower part, where those dark trees cluster together. Then, up above, the mountain fades into the sky with these hazy, horizontal strokes. Notice how those marks create a sense of distance, like the air itself is getting in the way. It’s almost like he’s using the pencil to sculpt the space. You know, this reminds me a bit of some of Klimt’s landscapes, that same all-over patterning, but without the color. Steenhoff finds something so evocative here, just with the simplest of means. It makes you realize how much you can do with so little, in art and in life.