Zanderij aan Kanaal 1899 - 1928

Jan Toorop made this intaglio print, ‘Zanderij aan Kanaal’ using etching and drypoint. The image has this beautiful scratchy quality, it feels immediate, like he’s directly responded to what he’s seeing and feeling in the moment. There’s a looseness to the lines that really pulls me in, and you can see the individual marks of the process. The drypoint gives this soft burr to the lines, a kind of halo effect, especially in the darker areas near the boats. Look at the way the lines vary in thickness and direction; it’s almost like a shorthand for describing light, depth, and form. The lines around the figure are particularly lively. The figure almost looks as if he has been pushed into the foreground by the density of line work behind him. For me, this piece speaks to the legacy of artists like Rembrandt, whose prints also had that incredible sense of immediacy, the feeling that you’re right there with the artist in the studio, watching the image come to life. There is something amazing about art's ability to capture a feeling, a mood, more than just a picture.