De schelpenvisser before 1928

Jan Toorop made this etching of a shell fisherman, called 'De schelpenvisser', sometime in his career. The whole image is rendered with a network of tiny, intricate lines. You can see it's a real process, almost like he's feeling his way through the image, stroke by stroke. What I love about this print is how it captures the grit and texture of the coastal landscape. The surface is almost metallic. If you look closely at the fisherman's coat, you can see the way Toorop uses the lines to suggest the weight and fall of the fabric. It reminds me of the kind of obsessive mark-making you see in the work of someone like James Ensor, where every inch of the surface is alive with detail. Toorop was an interesting character, always experimenting and trying out new ideas. You can see that restless energy in this little print. It's a reminder that art isn't about perfect representation, it's about the messy, beautiful process of trying to make sense of the world around us.