De mislukte vischvangst 1894 - 1959

This lithograph, ‘De mislukte vischvangst’, was made by Lamouche. I love the way the artist uses these very basic blocks of colour to create movement. It’s a little bit like early animation, a step by step unfolding of a narrative. The colour palette here is so contained, the earthy orange-brown of the figure’s clothing, and the pale green-blue backdrop – it’s a grounded, almost humble approach. It’s not trying to be flashy. Then you have this sense of the figure blundering through the landscape, tripping over fences, falling into holes - a really slapstick kind of humour. The lines are economical, yet the story telling is expansive. The last frame, with the shadows looming on the wall, has a surreal quality, almost like a theatre of the absurd. It puts me in mind of James Ensor’s etchings, that same sort of social satire but with a slightly darker edge. Art, in the end, is often about how we see ourselves, reflected back through a glass, darkly.