Drinkende mensen bij gekruisigde Christus 1894 - 1935

Mathieu Lauweriks made this woodcut, "Drinkende mensen bij gekruisigde Christus," and it’s a real head-scratcher in terms of subject matter, but striking in execution. Look at the way Lauweriks embraces the starkness of black and white to create such a powerful image. You get a sense of someone really digging into the process, wrestling with the material. The contrast is so strong it almost vibrates off the surface. See how the figures in the foreground are drinking, oblivious to the Christ figure looming above? There’s a real tension between the earthly and the divine here, heightened by the coarseness of the lines. The cross feels almost incidental in the scene. The artist uses the reductive quality of a print to really punch up the spiritual stakes of the scene. It’s like German Expressionism meeting some medieval morality tale! The rawness reminds me a bit of some of the work of Emil Nolde, that same willingness to be ugly in the service of something profound. It's a reminder that art doesn't always have to be pretty to be powerful. It’s about embracing the friction, the mess, the ambiguity.