Paysage de Norwege 1902

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen made "Paysage de Norwege", or "Norwegian Landscape", with etching. Look at the marks making up the foreground fence, the repetition of each dark, vertical line. See how each mark sits slightly off from the next, giving it a sense of looseness and movement. What I love about etching is this feeling of discovery. The artist has to imagine what the final image will look like in reverse, like a kind of secret code. The ink clings to the etched lines creating a tactile surface and a graphic punch. The bare paper sparkles and creates the illusion of light. The whole scene is captured with this energetic but restrained set of marks. It reminds me of some of Bonnard's lithographs, with a similar interest in capturing the feeling of a specific place. Ultimately, it’s this sense of place and the artist's relationship to it that makes the image sing.