Sunrise 1914

Erich Heckel made this woodcut, called *Sunrise*, with ink on paper. The thing about woodcuts is that they are so immediate, right? I mean, you're just hacking at a piece of wood! I imagine Heckel standing at his printing press, sleeves rolled up, thinking about those dark, irregular shapes he’s carved. I bet he felt a little like he was wrestling with the material as he tried to wrestle the image out of his head. Look at the jagged mountains and the way the clouds push across the sky. He was part of the Expressionist movement, and you can see the raw emotion coming through. I wonder if he was thinking about Kirchner or Schmidt-Rottluff. They all influenced each other. I think artists are always in conversation with each other, even across time. We’re all just trying to make sense of the world in our own way. And the cool thing about art is that there’s no right or wrong answer. It's more like a question that keeps evolving.