The Little Bridge 1913

Auguste-Louis Lepère made this print, The Little Bridge, with etching— a process based on incising lines into a metal plate with acid. Just imagine Lepère bent over that plate, deliberately dragging a fine needle across its surface. The composition is quite lovely, isn't it? Like peering through a window into another world. The sky is cloudy and the bridge is full of people. In the foreground, there's a woman tending to something on the ground. The artist creates a scene, with a bridge, houses and windmills, but then makes it strange by the light and density of marks. I wonder what it was like for Lepère to find this scene, and then find a way to translate it, through touch and pressure, into a web of lines. It reminds me that as artists we're all in this great big conversation, building on what came before.