Twee kinderen 1899 - 1937

Han van Meegeren made this etching of two children sometime in the early twentieth century. Look at those tight, clustered lines, like a swarm of gnats dancing in the air! The plate has been worked over and over, digging into the surface to create darker tones and build depth, while leaving other areas untouched to create highlights. You can feel van Meegeren's breath on the plate as he coaxes this scene into being. I imagine him hunched over his workbench, squinting through a magnifying glass, his hand moving with a delicate yet forceful pressure. Did he feel like a magician, conjuring these two figures out of thin air? Or perhaps he was just trying to capture a fleeting moment of childhood, that fragile connection between siblings, before it vanished forever. That boy with his nose in the book is a mood. Is he trying to escape into another world? Is he simply oblivious to the girl standing behind him, her hand resting on the chair? Van Meegeren must have felt something for these kids; maybe he thought of his own childhood.