Wilgen aan de sloot bij de Binckhorstlaan in Den Haag 1888 - 1934

Willem Adrianus Grondhout made this etching of willows near a ditch by the Binckhorstlaan in The Hague. Look at the way the light seems to emerge from the plate itself. It’s all about the touch, the pressure of the tool, a dance of revealing and concealing. Up close, the texture is like a memory, a landscape recalled through touch. See how the marks build up, each one a whisper of the artist’s hand? The scratches aren’t just lines; they’re tiny canyons, catching the light, making the trees tremble. There’s a real intimacy here, a sense of the artist being right there, drawing with a kind of urgent tenderness. The base colour reminds me of looking at very old photographs. It puts me in mind of other etchers like Whistler, who could do so much with so little, where every mark counts, and the white of the paper sings. In the end, it's not about what's depicted, but how it makes you feel, this little world of light and shadow, of touch and memory.