Priest Reading 1916

Lovis Corinth made this ink drawing of a priest reading. The scratchy, agitated lines make me think about the act of searching. I imagine Corinth, charcoal in hand, circling around his subject, trying to capture a likeness in a flurry of marks. Did he keep moving around, or was he still? Maybe that’s why the lines seem to vibrate. There's a nervous energy, a kind of searching. The thinness of the drawing somehow makes the whole image more powerful, more direct. It's like the artist is thinking out loud, using the priest as a vehicle for his own questions. The priest is bent over his book, his attention internal. It makes me wonder what Corinth, a contemporary of the expressionists, was exploring about the human condition. The priest’s posture almost hides him from view, but the searching quality of the marks brings him into focus.