Lezende mannen bij kaarslicht 1944

Here, Erkelens depicts two reading men in an etching of reading men by candlelight. It's all about the soft focus here, isn't it? Like the image itself is lost in thought. Check out how the candlelight flickers, a glow achieved through dense, almost frantic mark-making. See the way the lines create a gentle hum, less about precision and more about capturing a vibe, a mood. What could they be reading? A romance? A thriller? It's anyone's guess... The texture is barely there, a ghostly apparition on the page, the surface alive with tiny, energetic scratches. Look at the area around the lamp and how the light is almost tangible. You can sense the energy Erkelens put into the process, that kind of immediacy that artists like Manet and Whistler were so good at. Like them, Erkelens shows us that art is less about what you see and more about how you feel.