Drypoint Number Four: Portrait 1909

This drypoint portrait by Donald Shaw MacLaughlan is made up of tiny hatched marks, like he’s knitting with ink. I can imagine him drawing with a very fine needle on a metal plate, building up the image bit by bit. Each tiny line feels so deliberate, yet the overall effect is loose and flowing. You can almost feel the scratch of the needle, hear the scraping. The way he renders the light on the face is incredible, such detail – yet when you get up close, it all falls apart into a beautiful mess of lines. Look at the marks around the hair, how they curve to show its form. The lines are really charged. It reminds me a little of Whistler and maybe Rembrandt, the way he uses line to create such a sense of volume and depth. What a lovely conversation through time between artists, each learning and borrowing from the last. I wonder who MacLaughlan was looking at? Whose work will his influence? Art, like life, is an ongoing process of change and interpretation.