Sadotje c. 1921

Willem Witsen’s ‘Sadotje’ is a tiny, intimate scene, etched onto a copper plate sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. Just imagine him, bent over this little rectangle, scratching away with his needle, trying to capture the light, movement, and atmosphere of this foreign landscape. I wonder what it was like for Witsen to be there, in that place? What did he hear, smell, and feel? How does the texture of the copper plate itself—its smoothness, its coolness—play into the image? Look at the marks he makes to describe the horse, the carriage, and the figures. See how that squatting figure in the foreground grounds the composition. There’s a real economy of line here, a sense of capturing the essence of a fleeting moment. It reminds me a little of Whistler, actually, that interest in tonal effects and exotic subject matter. Painters are always in conversation with each other, borrowing, responding, pushing back. That’s how new forms of seeing come into the world!