Johannes de Doper 1915

Lodewijk Schelfhout made this print, Johannes de Doper, with an etching technique. The marks build up into a scene, a kind of jagged landscape of simplified forms. It's like seeing the world through a broken mirror. The textures and contrasts here are so strong. The figure of John the Baptist is striking, he is both powerful and vulnerable, an uncanny presence. He is rendered as a series of bold lines, starkly offset against the softer tones of the background, yet remains totally part of the scene. There is something about the way that the textures in the landscape are repeated in the clouds that creates a total world, unified by the act of mark-making. I am reminded of the graphic work of someone like Emil Nolde. There's a similar kind of expressionist intensity, a commitment to the power of the printed line to evoke feeling and mood. Art is about a dialogue across time, a conversation between artists who are grappling with similar questions.