De steiger aan de Maas 1888 - 1934

Willem Adrianus Grondhout made this print of the pier on the Maas river using etching, and what I love is how the whole scene emerges from a network of tiny, scratchy lines. It’s almost like he’s feeling his way through the fog, and we are too. Look at the way the pier in the foreground is built up of these hesitant marks, it’s there but almost not there, dissolving back into the atmosphere, that to me is art. There's a real sense of touch here, you can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the plate. The whole image flickers, capturing a fleeting moment in the life of the city. It reminds me a little of Whistler's etchings of London, these snatched views of a modern city. The image is all about seeing, and how we never really see one thing, but are always constructing our view of the world from fragments, feelings, and guesses.