Fem ællinger 1903

Vilhelm Th. Fischer made "Fem ællinger," or "Five Ducklings," as an etching—a kind of printmaking— sometime before 1928. Look at the scratchy marks that build up the ducks and the scene. I like to think of the artist bent over the plate, carefully building the image line by line. Were they thinking about other artists while they worked? Did they have a vision in their mind? The ducks are so cute, arranged like a chorus line. It's so fun to think of what Fischer was going for. Is the artist just trying to capture the ducks' likeness, or something more? Maybe they are telling a story about the relationship between the five ducklings? It makes me want to go home and draw. We can never really know what Fischer was thinking, but this little slice of the world opens up a whole space of imagination. That's the power of art.