De meester en de leerling 1923

Erich Wichmann made this lithograph, ‘De meester en de leerling’, likely with a greasy crayon on a stone. It’s all about soft, velvety marks, a real tonal dance between light and dark. For me, artmaking is a process of revealing, like Wichmann seems to be doing here. Look how the figures emerge from the shadows; the master, upright and austere, and the apprentice, bowed in deference. The litho crayon has left a kind of residue, a felt-like texture, like smoke around the two figures. It's almost ghostly. I’m drawn to the way the lines aren’t perfectly defined, more like suggestions. The master’s head, so elongated, it reminds me of a Modigliani, but with a touch of dark humor. It makes you wonder what other echoes and exchanges exist in art history, not so much copies, but whispers passed down through time. Art is an ongoing, evolving dialogue. It is never finite or fixed.