Fernande with Arms Crossed, Large Plate (Fernande les mains croisees (grande planche) 1923

This print by Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac is all about the process, a dance of line and tone etched into a plate. I imagine the artist hunched over the metal, the scratching of the needle a kind of intimate conversation. Look at those marks! They're not just describing Fernande, they're creating her, bit by bit. You can see the artist thinking, changing direction, correcting, and emphasizing. The lines are a bit like handwriting, aren't they? A scrawl of thought across the surface. It's really quite intimate. I bet Segonzac was thinking about earlier artists, like Rembrandt, when he made this image. They're both using the same language of light and shadow, the same tools, even. It's all one big conversation, isn't it? A back-and-forth across time, where artists riff off each other, challenge each other, and push each other to see the world in new ways.