Pijprokende man op stoel 1907

This etching by A. Gilius depicts a pipe-smoking man on a chair, conjured from a flurry of tiny, scratchy lines. It's all in shades of grey, like a memory fading at the edges, the image held within a larger, blank page. I imagine Gilius hunched over the plate, the scratching tool in hand like a pen, slowly building up the figure from a multitude of marks, each one a tiny decision. Did he pause, I wonder, considering the weight of the man's coat, the angle of the pipe? There’s a hesitancy to the lines, a tenderness in the way they describe the man's form. The way Gilius allows certain forms to dissolve and shift, focusing on an eye, a hand, a fold in the coat. Each etching creates a sense of texture and depth, adding to the feeling of the man relaxing in his armchair. It’s a study in patience and looking, where one mark is the start of an ongoing conversation. We all learn from each other, after all, adding our own marks to the collective canvas of art history.