A Blind Musician - Granada 1914

James Craig Annan made this photogravure, A Blind Musician - Granada, sometime around the turn of the century. Look how the whole scene is built from a palette of grays and blacks, like a charcoal drawing. It’s this tonal approach which gives the piece its emotional weight, its solemnity. Check out the surface quality here, the granular texture of the print. You can really see the physical materiality of the process. The way the light hits the wall behind the musician, and the deep shadow that it casts, is so evocative. The shadow becomes almost another character in the scene. It’s a somber image, but there’s also something very beautiful about it, a quiet dignity in the figure of the musician and in the way that Annan has captured him. This piece really reminds me of the work of Käthe Kollwitz, who also made prints with a similarly heavy, textured feel and a focus on social themes. With both artists you can sense a real engagement with the world and a deep empathy for their subjects.