Poortje, Hotel Bellevue, Buitenzorg c. 1921

This etching by Willem Witsen gives us a window onto a garden space in Buitenzorg. I can imagine him carefully drawing the scene by hand with a needle on a copper plate. There’s a great sense of depth here, right? I wonder if Witsen was thinking about Japanese prints and the way they create space. Look how his marks build up the texture, like the soft give of the grass, the rough bark of the trees, and the hard stone archway. These different marks are how he describes the world. What might he have been thinking about as he etched? Was he trying to capture a fleeting moment of light, or the feeling of being in that place? I feel transported somehow. We, as artists, all stand on each other's shoulders in a way. Witsen was part of a long conversation with other artists about how to represent the world, and it's a conversation that continues to this day. Each artist brings something new, something of themselves. Painting and drawing isn't about answers, but about opening up new questions and possibilities.