Boerderij 1915

Lodewijk Schelfhout made this etching titled 'Boerderij,' using stark black lines to conjure a dreamlike landscape. You know, looking at this print, I start to think about the relationship between night and day, light and shadow, and the way the artist uses light and dark. I imagine Schelfhout hunched over the plate, pushing and pulling with the needle, trying to find the right balance to convey the scene. He’s thinking about Rembrandt and the old masters, but also trying to be himself. It is easy to picture the artist, alone in their studio, wrestling with the image, trying to get it just right. Look at the way he scratched those lines to make the windmill! It's like he's trying to capture something fleeting, something that's almost gone. And aren't we all doing that, as artists? Trying to hold onto something before it disappears?