Jager 1916

This lithograph, “Jager,” now at the Rijksmuseum, was made by Lodewijk Schelfhout, but when I look at this, I don’t see “Jager,” I see process. I’m thinking about how Schelfhout built up this image, bit by bit, working between light and dark, adding a little here and there, maybe trying something out and then scraping it back. It's like a dance, isn't it? I wonder if he was listening to music while he worked? Was he trying to work out some feeling that words just couldn’t capture? Or maybe he was trying to get at some kind of truth. The world is always mediated, and so is the painted image. Painters are always talking to each other, even across time. I think about how this piece can be in conversation with work by Picasso, Braque, or Gris... Cubism was really the beginning of this ongoing conversation.