Zittende vrouw 1915

Lodewijk Schelfhout made this etching called ‘Zittende vrouw’—or Seated Woman—sometime during his lifetime, using dense marks and a stark palette of blacks, whites, and grays. I can imagine Schelfhout, bent over the plate, using line after line to build up form. Can you see how he coaxes the figure from the darkness? There’s a real intimacy here—the woman seems caught in a private moment, perhaps exhausted, maybe even a little sad. I can almost feel the scratch of the needle on the copper, the physical act of creation. She reminds me of other artists—Käthe Kollwitz comes to mind—who were also drawn to the expressive possibilities of printmaking. There's a way that printmaking can communicate the dark and somber, but also the psychological and emotional. Ultimately, art-making is about communication. Each artist builds on the work of those who came before, and printmakers like Schelfhout and Kollwitz give us a glimpse into the human condition.