Gypsy Vans, Petersfield Fair, Hampshire 1914

Muirhead Bone made this etching, Gypsy Vans, Petersfield Fair, Hampshire, and what strikes me is the light touch of his lines, a real sense of transience. He's not trying to capture a solid reality, more like a fleeting impression. The whole scene is built up from these delicate, almost hesitant marks, like he's sketching in the air. Look at the smoke curling from the van's chimney - it's barely there, a wisp of a suggestion. The lines defining the vans, the figures, even the landscape, feel provisional, open. He’s capturing the bustling scene but in a way that feels really intimate. It’s a whole world conjured out of almost nothing. Bone’s contemporary, Whistler, comes to mind, with his equally delicate and atmospheric etchings of London. Both artists are interested in capturing a sense of place, but also a sense of the ephemeral, the fleeting nature of experience.