La Ferme a l'aire l'apres-midi 1926

Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac made this etching, La Ferme a l'aire l'apres-midi, which roughly translates as 'The Farm in the Area in the Afternoon', using fine lines to capture a sleepy rural scene. The marks are like quick notations, a shorthand for leaves, grass, and distant hills. There's something so satisfying about the scratchy texture, and the way Segonzac coaxes depth from a single color. The light in this etching is soft, diffused, like the end of the day. I love the way the lines describing the sky are horizontal, and the way this contrasts with the more energetic, chaotic lines that define the trees. See how the larger tree on the left almost spills out of the frame, anchoring the composition. Segonzac was working at the same time as Matisse and Derain, and although he's less well known now, he shared a similar interest in the expressive potential of color and line. You could see an artist like Lucian Freud as a distant relative in the way he used etching to capture the ruggedness of the world around him. Art is just one long conversation, isn't it?