Liefdespaar bij een boom c. 1840 - 1860

Curator: This drawing, “Liefdespaar bij een boom,” or “Couple in Love by a Tree,” is by Charles Rochussen, created sometime between 1840 and 1860. It’s a pencil drawing on paper. What's your immediate reaction to this piece? Editor: It strikes me as incredibly delicate, almost ephemeral. The light pencil work gives it an airy quality, and you can practically feel the toned paper beneath the marks. Curator: Absolutely. Rochussen's skill in handling pencil and paper transforms an ordinary scene into something rather compelling. Given that Rochussen primarily produced illustrations and genre paintings, consider how labor practices in the print industry may have influenced his technique with drawing media. Editor: True. And I think there's a real sense of theatre here, with these figures arranged in distinct groupings. It feels like a captured moment from a play, doesn't it? How the location in the Rijksmuseum may affect how people perceive this piece. Curator: Precisely! That dramatic element speaks to the wider culture of Romanticism, of course. Think about the social role of public displays of affection and courtship at this time. Rochussen, through this image, becomes both observer and participant in that culture. Editor: I see that too, and the material sketch seems quite progressive for its time. Also interesting is the scale and layout of the figures within the work itself. Are those all scenes in a single go or fragments stitched together to evoke an array of people near one another? Curator: It's difficult to know precisely what Rochussen had in mind, I think that is part of its inherent appeal to a modern audience. But it speaks to ideas of image production at that time as well, a study that may then feed other work. The piece embodies what he could make with the simplest of raw materials, the interplay of pencil and paper, tone and texture. It speaks volumes about artistic possibilities through humble, readily accessible components. Editor: In many ways the final image leaves us in this position of a personal, uninhibited snapshot. As viewers, the artwork, whatever the initial intentions were, invites a more casual approach than may have been afforded in a gallery exhibiting high oil paint portraits of the same period. Curator: An insightful interpretation! It speaks to the dynamic potential held within artistic material culture. Editor: Agreed! There’s a strange power to that simple sketch on paper.