Desert Cedars, New Mexico 1920

This is George Elbert Burr’s "Desert Cedars, New Mexico", an etching, so made by scratching lines into a metal plate. It’s all about the process, the layering up of marks, like a form of drawing, a kind of patient, deliberate meditation. The physical surface of the print has a unique texture from the etched lines, a tactile quality that contrasts with the vast, open landscape depicted. Look closely, and you can see the thousands of tiny marks that make up the image, the way he suggests the foliage of the trees with these short, repetitive strokes. See that detail in the tree trunk, that knot or burl, it’s like the whole history of the tree is written there, a record of its struggles and survival. Burr was clearly fascinated by the American landscape, but this reminds me a little of some of the more graphic, detailed works by someone like Whistler. Ultimately, it’s that combination of meticulous detail and a sense of the sublime that makes this piece so compelling, an artwork which invites us to slow down and really look.