The Hill of Sainte-Anne (La Colline de Sainte-Anne) 1925

Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac made this etching of The Hill of Sainte-Anne sometime in the early to mid 20th century, I imagine with a grounded needle on a copper plate, and a bath of acid. It’s all in the scratching, isn’t it? I can almost feel the needle digging into the plate, making those tiny marks that add up to a world. Look at the way the lines create the sky. It's like scribbling, a child's drawing of rain. There’s a wonderful looseness here; he’s not trying to make a perfect picture but trying to capture a feeling, a moment, the essence of that hill. I bet de Segonzac was out there, feeling the wind, squinting in the sun, trying to get it all down before the light changed. He was part of a long conversation with artists like Corot and Courbet, those landscape painters who wanted to show the world as it was, not some idealized version of it. I love the way one artist picks up where another leaves off, adding their own voice to the chorus.