Horses 1918

Acke Aslund made this image, titled ‘Horses’ with some kind of etching process, sometime in the early 20th century. You know, what strikes me is the really active surface, made up of all these tiny little marks. It’s almost like he’s not just depicting the horses but capturing a feeling, a kind of movement and energy, in the whole picture. Look closely at how the clouds are formed with these short, broken lines, and then notice how that same texture repeats across the ground and the bodies of the horses. It’s like the whole scene is vibrating. And the limited colour palette gives it this timeless, almost dreamlike quality. I think of other printmakers like Whistler, who also played with atmosphere and tone, but Aslund has a rawness, an immediacy. It’s like he's less concerned with perfection and more interested in conveying the sheer joy of mark-making. To me, the beauty lies in its imperfections, in the way it captures a fleeting moment.