Pierrot I 1917

Lodewijk Schelfhout made this monochromatic portrait of Pierrot, possibly a self-portrait, using etching. Look at the cross-hatching, so much labor creating the tones and contours! It’s like Schelfhout is searching for the right form, building up the face and costume with these tiny, deliberate marks. The blacks are deep and velvety, making the face seem to emerge from the shadows, which gives it a haunted quality. I can imagine Schelfhout hunched over the plate, carefully layering each line, maybe thinking about the commedia dell'arte tradition, or the melancholic nature of Pierrot himself. I wonder if he was feeling a bit like Pierrot at the time—isolated, misunderstood? The slight tilt of the head and the way the light catches the face, it’s all so expressive despite the limited palette. It connects to other artists who have taken the figure of Pierrot as a kind of emblem—like Picasso and Watteau. Artists are always riffing on each other, drawing inspiration from the past, making it their own. I like how this print invites us to contemplate the complexities of identity and the artist’s own inner world.