Nachtelijk gezicht op het Damrak c. 1905 - 1906

This is Willem Witsen’s ‘Nachtelijk gezicht op het Damrak’, a small etching of a night scene in Amsterdam. Witsen has got this incredible atmospheric perspective going on using just one colour. It's like he’s built the image from the ground up through a real hands-on, iterative process. Look at the way he's worked the surface of the print. The network of cross hatched lines, like a million tiny scratches creating the tones of the image. The dark ink almost vibrates on the page. See how the reflections of the lights shimmer across the water in these little, tiny marks? It's like he’s captured the very essence of a wet, dark night in Amsterdam. Witsen was part of a group of Dutch artists who were really into capturing everyday life. You can see a similar sensibility in Whistler's etchings of London. But in the end, it’s this tangible sense of process and gesture that gets me every time.