On the Calumet 1912

Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt made this etching, On the Calumet, sometime in the early 20th century. It's all about mark making. It's a testament to the power of lines, scratches, and crosshatching to create an entire world, an industrial landscape. The real action is in the details, those tiny etched lines that define the boats, buildings, and churning smokestacks. The surface of the water, especially, is built from a mesh of marks that somehow coalesce into something shimmering and alive. Notice how Nordfeldt uses the density of lines to suggest depth and shadow, the way he builds up the texture of the smoke with layer upon layer of tiny scratches. Nordfeldt studied with Whistler, another master of etching, and you can feel that legacy here, that sense of capturing a fleeting moment with a network of carefully placed lines. There's no fixed meaning here, just a feeling, an atmosphere, a world evoked through the magic of mark-making.