Harlekijn en hond 1939

Lodewijk Schelfhout made this etching, “Harlekijn en hond,” using thin black lines to depict a seated harlequin and a small dog. Imagine him bent over the plate, scratching away to build the image line by line. I wonder what Schelfhout was thinking when he made this image? The harlequin looks strangely sad. His crown is limp and his ruffled collar seems to weigh him down. The little dog mirrors the harlequin’s melancholy as it looks up at him. I can imagine that this print may have been a breakthrough for Schelfhout, a moment where an idea cohered into a form he could then develop in subsequent works. It is tempting to draw a line from this harlequin to other artists, perhaps Picasso's series of harlequins or even the clown figures of Philip Guston. Artists are always in conversation with each other, each one building on what came before. It’s like we’re all passing notes in one big art-historical classroom.