Katwijk aan zee in de winter 1885 - 1931

Frederika Henriëtte Broeksmit made this small print of Katwijk aan Zee with etching, a printmaking technique, so she would have been drawing with a needle on a metal plate. You can imagine her bent over the plate, scratching lines to build up the image. The landscape is stark, but rendered with such sensitivity. I am thinking about the contrast between the delicate lines and the rough, cold environment she’s depicting. See how the horizon line is barely there. The houses in the distance are simplified into shapes, suggesting more than describing. What was she thinking when she made this? Did she feel isolated, like the lone figure? Maybe she was thinking of other printmakers, of the long tradition she was stepping into. This print feels like a conversation with other artists, across time, a sharing of ideas and techniques and ways of seeing. It's a quiet kind of rebellion, making something so small and intimate in the face of a vast, indifferent world.