Molenaar in de korenmolen van Wijk bij Duurstede knoopt een zak dicht c. 1908

Willem Witsen made this etching of a miller tying a sack in a mill somewhere near Duurstede. It’s all done in these delicate, scratchy lines. You can almost feel the grit of the flour dust in the air. I can imagine him, Witsen, standing in the dim light of the mill, squinting as he tries to capture all this detail, the rough-hewn beams, the weight of the grain sacks. It’s not just about recording what's there but also about getting a feel for the place. You can imagine the challenge of translating something so three-dimensional into a two-dimensional image, trying to keep all the tones balanced. There's a tenderness in this image, a respect for labor and a sense of being there, amidst it all. We get to experience something of the interior, and the feeling of the Dutch landscape in that small window, but it's really about the texture and surfaces of things. You can sense that Witsen is in conversation with other painters, and other etchers too, finding his own voice through line and tone.