Vallkulla 1912

Anders Zorn made "Vallkulla" with etching, and looking at it, you can tell he's not trying to hide the process at all. In fact, it's like he's celebrating it. There's this amazing texture, like the whole thing is built from these little, tiny marks. If you look at the ground, it's not just ground, it's a whole bunch of lines doing their thing. It feels like Zorn is letting us in on a secret, like he's saying, "Hey, this is how I see the world, one line at a time." And those lines, they’re not precious, they’re just there, doing the work of making a picture. The lack of color almost makes you focus more on the shapes and the light, it reminds me a bit of Whistler's prints, where it's all about mood and atmosphere. Ultimately art is this big conversation, artists talking to each other across time.