Zilverreiger (toiletmakend) 1892 - 1931

Henri Verstijnen made this print of a heron preening, and the thing that gets me is the dark moody atmosphere he’s created. The white lines of the bird pop out of the inky black. I imagine Verstijnen in his studio, maybe it’s night, and he’s carefully etching these lines into the plate, each one a little decision. Is it going to be dark here? Light there? Or both? It looks like he’s trying to bring a sense of depth with all these lines, like he’s dragging us into this watery world. The way the heron's feathers explode outwards, it reminds me of the way Whistler’s Peacock Room explodes with decorative energy. It’s like Verstijnen is in conversation with all these other artists, pushing and pulling at the boundaries of what a print can do, what it can say. It makes you think about how art is this ongoing conversation, with each artist answering back to the ones who came before, and maybe even the ones who come after.