Figuur zittend op een fazant op het strand c. 1925

Bernard Essers made this print of a figure sitting on a pheasant on a beach sometime in the first half of the 20th century, using a graphic language of simplified forms. The whole thing is about mark making and contrast, about the dialogue between the solid black and the empty white of the page. There's a real sense of rhythm in the repetition of lines, creating movement and depth, like the lines of those waves. Notice the texture achieved through the density and direction of the lines. The feathers of the pheasant, for example, have this fantastic texture. The way the lines curve and overlap, give a sense of the bird’s volume. It’s like Essers is carving out these shapes with the very minimum of means, pushing this basic contrast of light and dark as far as it can go. The economy of mark-making here reminds me of the work of someone like Emil Nolde, who similarly embraced the expressive potential of stark black and white imagery. It’s a powerful reminder that art doesn't always need to be complicated to be deeply evocative and meaningful.