The Tweed at Coldstream 1905

David Young Cameron made this etching, The Tweed at Coldstream, and you can see how the lines build up, like he's sketching with acid and metal. It's all in these little marks, like a secret code he’s worked out over time. I can imagine him, bending over the plate, the acid doing its work, a dance of control and chance, just trying to capture the scene before him. The landscape—the water and the trees—it’s all implied, not stated. There are these almost scribbled lines reflecting from the water; that little boat and the trees are like smudges, dark and dense. It feels intimate, like a memory. Looking at how Cameron uses line, I’m thinking about Whistler, and other artists who were into making landscapes from suggestion and atmosphere. The artist wasn't just copying nature, he was feeling it. He's asking us to slow down and really look. And maybe to feel, too.