En gammel Mand skriver i en Bog 1733 - 1816

W.A. Müller made this etching, “An Old Man Writing in a Book,” sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. Etching involves drawing with a sharp needle through a waxy ground on a metal plate, which is then bathed in acid. The acid bites into the exposed lines, which are then inked and printed. The relatively low cost of the process meant that prints like this were widely accessible. The image shows a scholar, hunched over his work; the quality of line is confident, but not overly refined. You can almost feel the artist’s hand at work here. The proliferation of printed images in this period drove a wedge into older notions of artistic value. Originality became less about technical skill and more about the idea being conveyed. In this way, prints like this opened the door for the conceptual art that we know today, which is just one reason why they still have so much to tell us.