Het knollenveld 1975

Here's that field, captured by Camille Pissarro with some kind of etching tool. It's a pretty dark image with a house in the background, and a dark leafless tree breaking up the composition. I can imagine Pissarro outside on a cold day, bundled up in a coat, squinting as he looks at the field of root vegetables. He then transfers all that looking and feeling into the metal plate by scratching at it. It’s all about the energy of those lines, the way they swarm and cluster to make shapes. They remind me a little of Van Gogh’s mark-making, maybe? Each mark is a decision; a tiny little choreography of hand, eye, and tool. And when you put them all together, you get a feeling for the whole field. It becomes this abstract, almost musical rhythm that vibrates in front of your eyes. That’s what paintings are all about: seeing, feeling, thinking, and making it all happen at once.