Muis 1916

Jan Mankes made this etching of a mouse, called 'Muis', at some point during his short life. It's tiny! The kind of work you can only make by really looking, I mean, really studying the subject. The fur is rendered through a series of fine lines, so close together they almost vibrate. Look at the shading, building up the form of the mouse's body through the density of those marks. The tail, though, is different, more like a quick sketch, a sense of movement. Then there's that hatched horizon line, grounding the creature in its world. Mankes died young, so there isn't a huge body of work, but you can see in all of it this incredible tenderness, a delicate touch. Think about someone like Morandi, another artist who found endless inspiration in the everyday. Art isn't about grand gestures, it's in the looking.