Villa d'Este 1912

Here is Simon Moulijn's etching of the Villa d'Este. The drawing is rendered with these very fine lines, like a spider's web, that suggest the stillness of a hot afternoon in Italy. You can almost hear the cicadas. I imagine Moulijn standing there, squinting in the sun, trying to capture the light as it hits the stone steps and reflects back up into the dark, cool archway. There’s something about the way he’s described the texture of the stone that makes me think he must have run his own hands over it. The whole composition leads your eye into that dark center, like a visual dare, inviting you to step out of the sunlit present and into the cool depths of history and memory. It reminds me of Piranesi and other artists who have tried to capture the grandeur and melancholy of Rome. Artists are in an ongoing conversation, aren't they? It’s reassuring.