Huisje te Ter Heijde bij Den Haag before 1931

Etienne Bosch made this etching of a little house in Ter Heijde near The Hague, but we don’t know exactly when. The whole image is built up with tiny, vibrating marks. Look closely at the roof; each tile is its own little cosmos. It’s almost as if the image is about how seeing is a process of building up and breaking down. The details are smudgy, they blur, and somehow this makes the house seem more vivid, more real. The texture! You can almost feel the roughness of the paper and the slight burr of the etched lines. It makes me think about how something humble, like a simple house, can be transformed into a resonant image through the artist’s touch. It reminds me a little of some of Morandi’s etchings, where he uses a similar close-valued palette to create a feeling of intimacy. Ultimately, it's less about the object depicted and more about the artist’s way of seeing and feeling.