En beneden waren de menschen 1925

Fré Cohen made this print, “En beneden waren de menschen,” which translates to “And Below Were the People,” using woodcutting. Look at how Cohen carved away the wood to make this dynamic image. I see the blades of a windmill dominating the picture plane, looming over a group of people huddled below. You can imagine the artist carefully considering each slice of the blade, how the light would hit the surface, making the windmill seem to turn in front of your eyes. I think Cohen wants us to consider our place in the world. Those in the group seem downtrodden, while the blades of the windmill feel both powerful and perhaps indifferent. Cohen’s use of black and white emphasizes the weighty, graphic quality of the image, and maybe makes us think of the German Expressionists like Käthe Kollwitz, who also used printmaking to highlight the plight of ordinary people. It’s like artists are always in conversation with each other, across time and place, riffing on similar themes or techniques.