Open kapel in Seelisberg in Zwitserland Possibly 1895

This is Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp’s rendering of an open chapel in Seelisberg, Switzerland. It was made using an etching, a printmaking technique that relies on the corrosive action of acid to create the image on a metal plate. The linear quality of the image is entirely determined by this process. The artist would have painstakingly drawn into a wax ground, exposing the metal in the desired lines. He then submerged the plate in acid. The longer the plate is exposed, the deeper the lines become. The result is a study in contrasts: between light and shadow, interior and exterior, and the built environment and nature. There is a huge amount of labor that goes into an image like this, and it may strike us today as a relatively obscure pursuit. Yet, this kind of careful observation, facilitated by craft, gives us a unique lens through which to appreciate the world.