A Vermont Village 1923

Childe Hassam made this etching on a plate of copper or zinc, and I can almost see the artist dragging his burin across the metal. It must have been a rainy day! Hassam’s captured a fleeting moment of light breaking through storm clouds. He’s using etching to explore a kind of impressionism, with a focus on light and atmosphere. I imagine him outside in Vermont trying to capture the feel of the place. He is building up the image with hundreds of tiny hatched lines. You can see the cross-hatching of the rain. And the light as it catches the steeple. The linear quality and the monochromatic palette give the whole scene a wonderful sense of depth and texture. I feel like I'm standing right there with Hassam, watching the shower pass over the village. It's like a memory, a feeling, captured in ink.