Vrouw, frontaal 1878 - 1943

Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita made this small woodcut, Vrouw, frontaal, at some point in his career. I’m drawn to the way he's embraced the woodcut process, not trying to hide the nature of the material. The texture is so present. You can almost feel the grain of the wood, and the way the ink catches in the little grooves and imperfections. It’s like he's saying, "Hey, this is a woodcut, and I’m not trying to make it look like anything else." There’s something really honest and straightforward about that. Take a look at the way the figure is silhouetted against the granular background. The figure is a stark, pale form, which is then activated by these small rectangles that stand in for the sleeves of the dress. The face is so direct, so open. It reminds me of the portraits by Paula Modersohn-Becker, who also embraced a kind of raw, unvarnished approach to depicting the human form. Both artists seem to be saying something about the importance of seeing and representing people as they are, without artifice or pretense. It's this kind of honesty that makes art so powerful.