The Lady with the Rose 1911

Timothy Cole made this small engraving of "The Lady with the Rose". I wonder about the process of engraving; it’s so unlike painting, where you add material to the surface. Here, Cole would have been removing material, carefully carving into a plate, to create this image. It’s an act of reduction to produce the figure of the lady and the textures of her dress. I imagine him bending over the plate, light reflecting off the metal, as he painstakingly added detail. The rose, barely visible, is subtly suggested and a focal point, yet the lady is equally faint, as if she might fade into the background at any moment. It’s interesting how one artist interprets another, and how ideas about the world, and ways of seeing, evolve and change across time. Each artist is in conversation, finding ways to make something new. And each of us finds a way to make meaning from what we see. Ultimately, it’s not about the fixed meaning but about the open-ended possibilities of our own interpretations.