System with Figures 1959 - 1961

Anton Heyboer made this etching, sometime after 1961. The network of lines and figures are printed in muted brown ink on a surface with a kind of granular texture, which makes it look like it might have been dug out of the earth. Heyboer used the etching technique to create a really particular kind of drawing. It’s almost like handwriting, or a kind of personal code. Look closely at the little scribbles and symbols that make up the figures, the geometric shapes that connect them. The etched lines, which create texture as well as structure, almost feel like tactile, raised markings. It reminds me a little bit of Paul Klee, in the way it reduces figures to these playful, enigmatic shapes. Heyboer’s work invites us to imagine a whole system of thought or belief, a world we can only glimpse through these symbolic forms. Ultimately, the beauty of art lies in its capacity to evoke feelings that go beyond language, and fixed meanings.