But Woman's Work is Never Done 1934

Lyman Byxbe made this print, entitled "But Woman's Work is Never Done," sometime in the 20th century. It's a simple scene, rendered in a palette of grays achieved through etching, a process where the artist coaxes an image from a metal plate. Look closely at the sky, see how it’s not a flat expanse, but a field of tiny, deliberate marks? This all-over attention to detail gives the whole scene a kind of hushed, industrious feeling. The texture in the sky is repeated in the thatch of the roof and the scumbled branches of the tree. See how the woman in the foreground is bent to her task? We get the sense that this activity is not just labor but a kind of meditation. Byxbe's print reminds me of the work of artists like Agnes Martin, who also found ways to coax subtle gradations of tone from a very restricted palette. It’s a testament to how much can be said with understatement. Art is, after all, an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas across time.