Prints and Authors in the Time of Manet

Zorn and His Wife

Etching and drypoint, 1890
Grace J. Hitchcock Collection, 1981.218

Anders Zorn’s vigorous linear hatching style is used throughout this print. The predominant diagonal lines, beginning in the dark recesses of the upper left corner, move downward and to the right, unifying the background with the figures of the artist and his wife. Slight variations in the density and thickness of the lines create the basic shapes and forms. Only in the faces, the hand, the lamp, and the foreground do the lines shift direction; in those areas the slight variations of the mostly vertical lines, combined with negative spaces, defines the character of the couple and introduces light into an otherwise foreboding interior.