Nurse with a Boy/The Mother and the Crying Child 1902

This is Edvard Munch’s Nurse with a Boy, an etching made with drypoint, now at the Art Institute of Chicago. Look at the linear hatching technique, which is so fast and loose, almost scribbled! That kind of mark-making lets you see the artist's hand, and that, for me, is where the magic happens. You get a glimpse into his process, the way he was thinking and feeling as he made the work. The nurse’s face is quite dark, a sharp contrast to the child on her lap. The child's face is hauntingly bright, almost like a mask. See how the etching needle has been used to create lines and textures that are almost rough? That rawness gives the image a powerful emotional charge. Munch was all about expressing inner turmoil and psychological states. You can see echoes of this in the work of later artists like Paula Rego, who also explore the darker sides of human experience through unsettling figurative work. Art is always in conversation!