Landschap met omgevallen boom, boten en hengelaar 1905

Willem Bastiaan Tholen created this landscape with fallen tree, boats, and angler, using etching to bring it to life. I can only imagine Tholen hunched over a copper plate, carefully drawing with a needle, building up tone with tiny, nervous lines. The composition here is so interesting, with a fallen tree diagonally slicing through the picture plane, creating a kind of proscenium arch for the boats and the lone fisherman in the distance. It's a surprisingly modern take on a landscape—the way the foreground flattens out and the depth is compressed. Was Tholen thinking about Japanese prints? Was he just trying to find a new way to capture the quiet stillness of the water? What I love about etching is how direct it is, like a drawing made permanent, a thought captured in metal. Artists like Tholen remind me that painting is just one part of a much bigger conversation that has been happening over centuries.