Boy with Dog 1915

Lovis Corinth made this print, Boy with Dog, using etching, those tiny, deliberate scratches that create a whole world. Look at the way he renders the boy’s face—those eyes looking right at you! I’m thinking about Corinth bent over the plate, watching the acid bite into the metal, each line a decision, a tiny act of mark-making. Maybe he was thinking about Rembrandt, and the long tradition of etching. I see a kinship in the shadows. Maybe he was thinking about the light, how it falls across the boy’s face and the dog’s fur, trying to capture that fleeting moment. That dog! Squeezed tight, a little wary. It makes you think about tenderness, about friendship, doesn’t it? I feel like Corinth is reminding us that art is, in the end, just one person talking to another, across time, across mediums.