Summer 1907

Anders Zorn made this etching called Summer at some point in his career; it's now hanging out here at the Met. Check out how he’s built up the image, layering line upon line to create depth, texture, and tone. I can imagine him bent over the plate, scratching away with his etching needle, trying to capture the way the light filters through the trees or reflects off the water. Maybe he’s thinking about Rembrandt and all those other printmakers who came before him, all those people who grappled with translating the world into marks on a surface. That kind of cross-talk, the kind that happens between artists across time and space, is what keeps the whole conversation going. It's a reminder that art isn’t made in a vacuum, but in an ongoing dialogue with everything that came before, a dialogue that, at its best, leaves room for uncertainty, ambiguity, and multiple points of view.