Sprinkhaan 1918

Julie de Graag made this woodcut called 'Sprinkhaan', or 'Grasshopper' in 1913. The greens in the print are so evocative. They suggest the lushness of a field where a grasshopper might hop. I wonder if she was thinking about how to make a two-dimensional world that still felt dimensional, and how the colour green might do this. I can imagine De Graag carving the block, considering the negative space around the grasshopper just as important as the figure itself. The process of carving must have been slow and deliberate. You have to make so many decisions! There's something so satisfying about the crisp lines and the flat planes of color, a conversation with other printmakers perhaps? It reminds me that artists are always in dialogue, borrowing and riffing off each other's ideas. Each mark feels like a thought, a feeling, a tiny moment of connection between the artist and the world.