Boerenschuur en hooiberg 1887 - 1952

Chris van der Windt made this small etching of a farm in Holland sometime in the early 20th century. I love how the world is built out of such simple marks, a real hands-on approach. You can sense him scraping away at the metal plate, coaxing the image into being. Look at the way the lines build up to describe the thatched roof, it's a dense, tangled mess, but somehow it reads so clearly as a rough, textured surface. The trees in the background are just these skeletal gestures, a flurry of lines that suggest the bare branches in winter. And then, down below, the ground is a dark, scumbled area, almost like he's scrubbing the plate clean. It’s the kind of work that reminds you that art is always an act of translation and interpretation. I think of Whistler looking at this, another etcher who made poetry from very little. It shows how a few simple marks can evoke a whole world.