Lezende man in een bibliotheek 1892 - 1948

Luc-Albert Moreau made this etching, "Reading Man in a Library," using a dry needle to scratch into the copper plate. Can you see the tiny burrs of metal that the needle leaves behind? These catch the ink and create that soft, velvety line. I think about Moreau in his studio, hunched over the plate, the scratching almost meditative. Was he thinking about the quiet intensity of reading, the way we get lost in books? Look at how the lines swarm and coalesce, building up the shadows and forms. The man is surrounded by books, but he’s also surrounded by a kind of energetic darkness. The cross-hatching on his coat looks like rain. The lines are so alive, vibrating, almost as if the books themselves are humming with stories. It reminds me of the way Rembrandt used etching to explore the psychological depths of his subjects. What do you think the man is reading? What is he thinking?