Elevator naast een loods 1885 - 1931

This etching, *Elevator naast een loods*, was made by Frederika Henriëtte Broeksmit. It’s a moody piece, all soft grays and hazy light, giving it a melancholic feel. The textures are what grab me. Broeksmit really works the surface, achieving these subtle shifts in tone with what must have been a very physical process. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving across the plate, coaxing out these ghostly shapes. Look at the way the light catches the top of the structure, it almost seems to dissolve into the sky. It's so suggestive, like a memory fading at the edges. This approach reminds me a bit of Whistler's etchings, in that it is more about atmosphere than detail. Both artists seem interested in capturing a fleeting moment. There's a real ambiguity here, and a sense that things are not quite what they seem.