Zittende muis 1917

Julie de Graag made this woodcut of a sitting mouse in 1917. It’s a print, so the process is all about carving away at a block to leave a raised surface, inking it, and pressing it onto paper. The textures here are so simple, just a few lines to suggest fur, and the flat planes of color. The way the mouse is framed by the dark rectangle makes it feel like we’re peeking into its world. There’s something so direct and unpretentious about this little creature. It feels like De Graag wasn't trying to make a grand statement, but instead just captured a moment of quiet observation. That cross-hatched snout, it gives the mouse a kind of knowing look, don’t you think? It reminds me of other printmakers like, say, Félix Vallotton, who also used the starkness of black and white to create these really intimate and slightly unsettling scenes of everyday life. And that’s what art is, right? A conversation across time. A way of seeing and thinking.