Daphnis achtervolgt Chloë 1937

This is Aristide Maillol's "Daphnis achtervolgt Chloë", at the Rijksmuseum. It's a monochromatic print depicting a mythological scene of pursuit and maybe reluctance. I can almost feel Maillol wrestling with the woodblock to carve out these figures. The lines are so clear, so decisive, each one mapping out the contours of the body with a kind of sensual confidence. What was he thinking as he made this, I wonder? Was he thinking about classical sculpture, about capturing the weight and volume of the human form? Maybe. I’m really struck by the tension between the figures, the way one reaches out, almost desperately, to grasp the other. You get the sense of forms existing in space, not just objects, but bodies full of longing. Artists are always looking at each other, borrowing, stealing, riffing off each other, it’s one big conversation that never ends! And so it goes...