Boom bij een kerk 1888 - 1924

Anna Catharina Maria van Eeghen made this etching of a tree by a church, using a muted palette of grays and browns. It’s as if the image slowly emerged, line by line, with each stroke of the etching tool building up a delicate scene. You can almost feel the chill of the air and the stillness of the moment. What was Van Eeghen thinking as she created this? Maybe she was drawn to the contrast between the natural, organic form of the tree and the structured, man-made architecture of the church. The bare branches reaching up towards the sky are so delicately rendered, and, I don’t know, maybe the artist related to this reaching and longing. It’s interesting to see how artists like Van Eeghen captured their world, isn’t it? We are all in this ongoing conversation, building on what came before, seeing the world through each other’s eyes. Painting and printing, drawing and scratching - they’re all forms of expression that leave space for ambiguity, for multiple meanings, and for the magic of interpretation.