Park bij nacht 1893 - 1943

Jean-Louis Boussingault made this monochromatic print, Park bij nacht, which roughly translates as 'Park at Night'. You know, I can almost feel what it was like for Boussingault to make this. The scraping, the smudging, the wiping away, the adding back. The sheer physicality. It must have been a process of revelation, gradually coaxing this haunting image into being. The way he's rendered the trees feels especially evocative. Thick verticals rising into the night, with so much barely defined in the shadows. Are they figures, animals, or just phantoms conjured by the night? The dogs, in particular, seem to float, suspended between worlds. I like to think that Boussingault was trying to capture not just what he saw, but how it felt to be there, immersed in the mystery of the night. He invites us to be co-creators of the image.