Breistertje 1894 - 1908

Henri Koetser made 'Breistertje' with etching. Just imagine him, bent over the plate, working with acid, building up those lines! It’s so moody, this landscape… It makes me feel the way I feel when I’m starting a painting and I’m not sure where it’s going. There’s something so vulnerable about that state. Koetser is unafraid to let the marks be visible. He’s not trying to hide the process. I wonder what he was thinking when he made this? Maybe he was thinking about Rembrandt, another Dutch master of etching. Or maybe he was just thinking about the girl knitting, and the way the light fell on her face. Whatever it was, he captured something really special here. It reminds me that art isn’t always about answers; sometimes, it’s about questions. It feels like a conversation that never really ends.