Groepsportret van een legendarische omgeving 1975

Harrie Gerritz made this print, titled Groepsportret van een legendarische omgeving, sometime in the twentieth century. The grey and white palette is punctuated with a vivid green line. It's an etching, and it has that quality of line that makes you think about process. I love the way he's organized the composition here, almost like a landscape within a landscape. The foreground is defined by that wooden fence, but then there's this little cut-out of a village scene, complete with a church steeple and little buildings, all capped off with a bright green horizon line. The texture in the grey areas feels almost like a hazy atmosphere. You can almost see the individual lines that create the tone. The relationship between the foreground and the background is so interesting, like one is protecting the other. It reminds me a little of the work of Philip Guston, especially the way he frames things and uses simple forms to create a sense of place. Art is always a conversation, right? And, like any good conversation, there are no easy answers.