Stilleven met een bloemenvaas voor een raam 1888 - 1934

Willem Adrianus Grondhout made this etching of a still life with a vase of flowers in front of a window, but we don’t know exactly when. The whole thing is rendered through these tightly packed hatched lines, like he’s trying to capture not just the look but the feel of the light in the room. Up close, you can really see the texture that Grondhout coaxes out of the etching, especially in the glass vase and the reflective surface of the table. It’s like he’s trying to trap the light and the shadow in the cross hatching, solidifying something as ephemeral as a reflection. I keep thinking about this patch of light on the left, like a puddle, and how it draws the eye in, past the objects in the foreground, deeper into the room. This kind of domestic interior reminds me a little of Vuillard, though his are more claustrophobic. There's a kind of casual poetry that comes with that slightly melancholy vision. Anyway, it's nice to see how one artist can pick up the thread from another and weave it into something new.