Summer Image I 1978

Albin Brunovsky made this etching, Summer Image I, with ink on paper. I’m immediately drawn into the incredible detail of the forest, made of thousands of tiny etched lines. It's like he built this whole world out of marks. You get a sense of time passing, of the artist really investigating every inch of the plate. Up close, the lines create these dense thickets. Stepping back, they define the edge of the forest, and the shape of the figures. I love how the human figures are right there, but almost hidden in the forest, as if they have emerged from the landscape itself. It reminds me of the prints of Max Klinger, who also had this knack for combining realism and fantasy in dreamlike compositions. It's like Brunovsky is suggesting that art is not about fixing a single meaning, but more about opening up possibilities.