De lege stoel 1869 - 1913

Curator: What a melancholic scene. The air itself feels heavy with grief. Editor: Indeed. This is "De lege stoel," or "The Empty Chair," an engraving by Willem (I) Steelink, likely created sometime between 1869 and 1913. Curator: An engraving, huh? It has the stillness of a photograph. It's all monochrome. The light is captured so perfectly that it feels... almost too real. Like witnessing someone else's pain from behind a veil. I feel as if I should give them space. Editor: The beauty in Steelink's technique comes through the mastery of light and shadow, a hallmark of Dutch Golden Age influence blended into the realism of the late 19th century. Note how the composition draws your eye, from the slumped figure at the table, to the vacant chair, and then the somewhat alienated presence of the maid by the door. It creates a path of narrative. Curator: It definitely emphasizes the void. Like an incomplete puzzle. All I want to do is understand who the chair belongs to! Maybe the man collapsed at the table is grieving for the sitter? His posture has such incredible expressiveness. Almost a genre painting in itself, I think? The empty chair itself serves as this central visual metaphor. Editor: Absolutely. The genre-painting aspect here blends domestic life with deeper social commentary. And if you examine it through a semiotic lens, you could view the objects—the dog, the overturned glass, the figures on the walls—as signifiers contributing to a cohesive representation of bereavement and memory. The textures are also rich considering it is an engraving. You see these small details and they draw you into the narrative and materiality in a very beautiful and human way. Curator: The longer I look, the more layers I uncover in this snapshot. It is kind of the artist to create an opportunity to mourn a distant, anonymous other with them, don't you think? And that kind of art lets the ego dissolve back into feeling. It’s beautiful really. Editor: Ultimately, what impresses me most about "The Empty Chair" is its remarkable capacity to weave such complex narrative and profound emotional depth within a monochromatic print, inviting a diverse array of analytical perspectives and responses.