Moving of Lines c. 1940

Jolán Gross-Bettelheim made this print, Moving of Lines, with layers of hatching, creating a world of light and shadow, maybe without a specific date but certainly with care. Looking at this, I imagine her bent over the plate, the acid biting into the metal, each line a tiny decision, a push and pull between control and chance. You can see how the web of dark lines feel like they are pushing at each other, and I start to wonder what Gross-Bettelheim was thinking about as she was making it. What were the feelings she was trying to convey? She was a Hungarian artist who trained at the Bauhaus, and I can see that shared interest in new approaches to representation. Her lines are angular and energetic. There's a real sense of movement, as though the buildings and pylons are in the process of being built, constantly being reshaped. Artists are always in conversation with one another across time, inspiring each other's creativity, as a form of embodied expression which embraces ambiguity and uncertainty.