Portret van generaal Drabbe 1903

Here's Jan Toorop's small portrait of General Drabbe in the Rijksmuseum, made with etching. It’s basically a dark square criss-crossed with lines. Imagine Toorop dragging the etching needle through the metal, each scratch building up a face. I feel for Toorop making this; you’re trying to get a likeness, to capture something real about this guy, but it's all just textures, trying to find the form through mark making. And the darker the metal, the harder it is, the more abstract. The network of tiny, chaotic scratches on the plate creates a shimmering effect. It reminds me of late Rembrandt, those self-portraits where the face emerges from the darkness, barely there, like a ghost. Etching always has this quality of searching, like you're trying to pull something out of the void, and it's never quite solid. That's the magic of it, right? We are all searching for new ways to see each other and keep the conversation going.