Het verdroogde aapje 1916

Gerard Vroom made 'Het verdroogde aapje' – The Dried-up Monkey – around 1916, likely with etching. It’s all about the line, isn't it? The kind of line that’s less about describing and more about feeling, about getting under the skin, so to speak. Look at the monkey’s face, those dark, hollow eyes and the way the lines gather around the mouth. It’s as if the monkey is both present and absent, living and decaying, all at once. The texture is built up through tiny, nervous marks, creating a surface that’s almost vibrating with a kind of spooky energy. You can almost feel the scratch of the needle, the bite of the acid on the plate. It reminds me of some of Ensor's masked figures, that same sense of unease and theatricality. But where Ensor layers on the color, Vroom strips it back, leaving us with the bare bones, both literally and figuratively. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t always have to be pretty, it can be raw, unsettling, and still beautiful in its own strange way.