Vissersjongen 1875 - 1935

Cornelis Koppenol’s etching gives us a figure of a young fisherman. His body is rendered in a network of crisp lines, almost like a memory being drawn into visibility. I wonder what Koppenol was thinking as he scratched the plate, watching the figure emerge from a sequence of marks. The beauty of etching is the line, a primary gesture that builds up tone and texture. Look at the boy’s thick woolen sweater, conjured up through densely hatched marks. Can you see how Koppenol varies the pressure of his hand, allowing some lines to be bold and others to be almost invisible? Notice the way the fisherman stands, with his hands tucked casually in his pockets. He almost seems to be posing. Painters, you know, we're all in this ongoing conversation across time. We look at each other's work and think, "Ah, yes, I see what you were trying to do there," even if we're separated by centuries. Each mark has a certain expressive charge.