Circusartiesten 1916

Maria Uhden made this woodcut called 'Circus Performers', sometime around 1916, using just black ink on paper. There’s something really immediate about woodcut; the way the artist has to directly carve the image. It’s kind of the opposite of painting where you can mix colors and blend edges and change stuff endlessly. Here, each cut counts, and there’s no going back. I love the way she’s crammed all these figures and animals into a tight square! Everyone’s tumbling and leaping, but at the same time they lock together like a puzzle. There’s something both chaotic and really controlled about it. Look at the way the white of the paper cuts through the black shapes. It reminds me of a stage set with figures emerging from the darkness. Maybe she was looking at German Expressionist prints, or maybe even way back to some medieval woodcuts. Either way, the piece has a freshness to it, like a snapshot from a dream.