Twee geiten en twee kippen in een stal 1879 - 1932

Adolf Eduard Herstein made this etching of two goats and two chickens in a stable, but when, we just don't know. The whole scene emerges from a kind of shadowy murk, through a web of very fine, scratchy lines. You can see the artist building up tone and texture gradually, almost tentatively. Look at the way the straw on the ground is described with quick, light flicks of the wrist, and then compare that to the darker, more insistent marks that define the animal’s bodies. It reminds me of Rembrandt actually, the way he uses the etching needle to really investigate the world, searching for the light within the dark. And that feels like what art is all about - an ongoing, open ended process of discovery, a back-and-forth between seeing and feeling, between the known and the unknown.