Stilleven met schedel op een boek 1919

Jacques Hartog made this etching, "Still life with skull on a book," sometime before his death in 1942. Look at the tiny, scratchy lines, how they build up to make the image. I bet he was thinking about the tradition of still life, and the old idea of "memento mori"—remember that you will die. I wonder if Hartog identified with that skull. It's sitting on a book, surrounded by other books. Was he feeling like his knowledge, his intellect, was all that was left? There's a sadness in this image, a quiet acceptance of the inevitable. And it's made even more poignant knowing that Hartog died during the Holocaust. The way the lines create a sense of depth, the way the light catches on the skull… it's like he's trying to find beauty in the face of death. It reminds me of other artists who used art to confront their mortality, like Rembrandt or Goya. There’s a long history of artists working through big feelings!