Kathedraal van Reims 1990s

This is Paul Emile Placet’s Kathedraal van Reims, an etching, made with what looks like a deeply personal approach to mark-making. You can tell this by the way the cathedral almost appears to be rising out of the earth on the plate. The texture is really something here; the way Placet coaxes the tones from the metal makes you think about the weight of history, and also the weight of the cathedral itself. Look at how the ink pools in the lower part of the image, giving an earthy, almost volcanic feel to the base of the building. Then follow the movement upwards to where the cathedral seems to almost dissolve into the sky. That fading-away effect reminds me a bit of Piranesi, but Placet’s touch is lighter, more human. His technique reveals the image slowly. It invites us to linger, to question, and to find new meanings in the old stones. It's a conversation between time, place, and artist, etched in the metal and printed on the page for us to discover.