Bos met loofbomen 1896 - 1939

Here is the Bos met loofbomen, made by Emilius Wilhelmus Dehé with etching. It's a mysterious landscape, something of a moody forest, and I love the tonal range of the blacks and greys. I can imagine the artist trying to capture the density of the leaves, the light struggling to filter through. I wonder what the artist was thinking, making an etching rather than a painting. I sympathize with the artist trying to find the right marks to express the feeling of being in the woods. Do you think the artist walked there, or did he make it from memory? It makes me think about other artists who have captured the forest, like the landscapes of the Barbizon School, or maybe even some of the darker, more brooding landscapes of German Romanticism. Making art is like being in conversation across time. We all learn from one another, taking inspiration and adding our own little twist. The beauty of this etching is how it shows something familiar, a forest, but leaves it open for us to bring our own experiences to it.