Gezicht op de ruïne van kasteel Kenilworth 1827 - 1879

Guillaume Van der Hecht created this etching, a print called "View of the Ruins of Kenilworth Castle," sometime in the mid-19th century. The original image was carefully incised into a metal plate with a sharp tool, a painstaking process. This kind of linear mark-making is entirely different from painting or drawing, where tone and texture are built up through layering. The etcher is, in a sense, a kind of sculptor, carving away at the plate in order to then build an image on paper through the mechanical process of printing. Notice the contrast between the solid architecture and the wispy vegetation. The crumbling ruins are rendered with a sharp precision, evoking the weight and permanence of the stone, now yielding to the effects of time. This print, like all prints, is an object made for distribution. The artist made it with the intention of disseminating this image far and wide, inviting others to contemplate themes of memory, loss, and the passage of time.