Berit 1905

Anders Zorn pulled this print called 'Berit' out of a metal plate sometime around the turn of the last century. The whole thing is hatched and cross-hatched like mad, a thicket of dark marks building form out of shadow. You can almost feel the scratch of the tool on the metal, the artist wrestling with the image. Look at the way Zorn uses these marks to suggest the soft curves of Berit’s body, the contrast between light and dark giving her shape and depth. See that dense patch of lines behind her? It's like a whole world is packed in there. Zorn’s known for this kind of tonal complexity in his etchings, and you see something similar in the paintings of his contemporary, Edouard Manet, with his loose brushstrokes and interest in capturing fleeting moments. With ‘Berit,’ Zorn isn’t just showing us a nude; he’s inviting us into a conversation about light, shadow, and the beauty of raw, expressive mark-making. It’s all about the process, the push and pull of the tool across the plate.