Edö 1907

Anders Zorn made this etching, Edö, with delicate lines that remind me of drypoint. I like to imagine Zorn outside, near the water, with his copper plate, thinking, what mark can I make next? How can I describe this body on a rock? He must have been thinking about light, and how a line can both describe a surface and dissolve it into shadow. See how the shadow that falls across the rock is made up of hundreds of tiny scratches, and how those scratches also give it texture and volume? The way the composition has been structured reminds me of Gustave Courbet and other painters who were interested in realism. Ultimately, painting is a form of embodied expression, and so much can be communicated through marks, whether intentional or accidental. Each artist offers their own way of seeing, thinking, and feeling the world.