Portrait of a Man 1916

This is a woodcut portrait, by Werner Gothein, an artist from the early 20th century. You can almost feel the artist hacking away at the block, making these raw, expressive marks. I imagine Gothein really going to town on that block, almost battling with the material to get the image out. What was he thinking when he made this? Probably something along the lines of, "How can I capture this guy's essence with as few lines as possible?" Look at the way the white spaces carve out the face and mustache. You can see the artist has really dug in to bring out the light. The texture is so important here. Those chunky lines and the contrast really give it a punch. It reminds me a bit of some of the German Expressionists, like Kirchner, who were also playing around with this kind of intense, graphic style. It’s cool how artists riff off each other like that, across time and place.