An Egyptian Mirror 1909

David Young Cameron made "An Egyptian Mirror," now at the Art Institute of Chicago, using etching to create this work. It feels delicate, the figure barely there. I love how the artist builds up the image with lines, like he’s coaxing it into being. What's so fascinating to me is how much is left unsaid. There's this figure, standing on a block, maybe a goddess, maybe just a woman—and then this dark shape above her head. Is it a headdress, a mirror, or something else entirely? It’s all a bit mysterious. I wonder what Cameron was thinking about when he made this. Was he trying to capture a sense of ancient mystery, or was he just playing with shapes and forms? Maybe he saw something similar in another artist's work and he was in conversation with them, like an aesthetic call and response. It’s that ambiguity, that openness to interpretation, that makes it so compelling. It feels like a dream, or a half-remembered memory.