Beer (Bruun) en vos (Reinaert) Possibly 1909

Bernard Willem Wierink made this print called Beer (Bruun) en vos (Reinaert), but we don’t know exactly when. It’s at the Rijksmuseum. Here's this image with these ghostly figures, like they’ve emerged from a dream. I can imagine Wierink working on the plate, scratching away, and inking, wiping, and re-inking to get the image just right. It feels so physical, the way the light tone creates a sense of depth, like looking through fog. What was he thinking as he etched the image of the animals? Did he see them as characters in a play, or did he feel something more? I wonder how Wierink saw himself in relation to other printmakers like Hercules Segers, who were also experimenting with unconventional methods. There’s a conversation happening between artists across time, a kind of call and response that keeps the creative process alive. We all borrow, steal, and transform, hoping to add something new to the mix.