Jozef 1930

Lodewijk Schelfhout made this print called Jozef in 1930. The lines are so delicate, like a whisper of graphite on paper. I imagine Schelfhout, hunched over his desk, squinting at the emerging image. What was he thinking as he rendered Joseph’s contemplative face? Maybe he felt a kinship with the biblical figure, a sense of quiet strength in the face of uncertainty. The composition feels carefully constructed, with Joseph at the center, framed by those geometric shapes at the top. It reminds me a bit of early Modernism, but with a touch of something else…a dreamlike quality? Looking at this print, I feel part of an ongoing conversation, echoing through time. Schelfhout was in dialogue with the past, and now, here we are, years later, responding to his vision. That’s the magic of art—it keeps us connected, keeps us questioning, keeps us feeling.