Reiger met drie apen 1905

Theo van Hoytema made this print of a heron and three apes, probably around the turn of the last century. The image is all greys and blacks, and was probably made using lithography. I can see a dense mass of marks, like a dark curtain. I'm imagining van Hoytema working on the lithographic stone, grinding it down, drawing, wiping, re-drawing, and proofing. Making an image like this feels like a game of hide-and-seek, searching for the image in the stone. The soft and blurred application gives the image the quality of a dream. The ape’s faces have a kind of dark humor, like they're in on a joke that we are not. The world of printmaking is such a collaborative endeavor, like a conversation. I wonder who van Hoytema was looking at? Maybe he was looking at other printmakers? Or perhaps he was interested in the graphic quality of Japanese woodcuts. Artists are always in conversation, and that’s what makes art so exciting.