Saint-Oual 1902

This etching of Saint-Oual was made by André Dauchez, but the date is unknown. It’s amazing to think of the artist hunched over a copper plate, carefully scratching away at its surface, to create a scene like this, with its flat, dreamy landscape that seems to stretch on forever. Look at those buildings in the background, so delicately rendered, they feel like they might just lift off the surface, like dandelion clocks on a summer breeze. I imagine Dauchez thinking about light and shadow, how they play across the dunes and rooftops, and how to capture that feeling. See the long, horizontal lines suggesting flatness? The texture is smooth, but those diagonal lines give it an incredible dynamism, like a silent movie on the wall. This reminds me of other landscape painters, like the Dutch Masters or even Whistler, all trying to capture the mood of a place, one tiny mark at a time. Each artist borrows and steals from each other over time, but then they also strike out and do something new. It's a conversation that stretches back centuries. Painting: it's not just about what you see, but how you feel about it.