Tevia and His Wife Golde 1957 - 1961

Anatoli Lvovich Kaplan made this lithograph, called Tevia and His Wife Golde, using dark, scratchy marks. I imagine him drawing into the stone with real physical effort. The image feels somber, rendered in grainy blacks and grays, with a couple standing next to their cows. I wonder what was going through Kaplan's mind as he created it? Was he thinking about family? About labor and the land? The gestures in lithography capture something essential about form and feeling, about the weight of life. Look at the woman’s eyes. The dark lines communicate a sense of weariness, but also tenderness. The whole image is like a dance of marks, pulling forms out of a dark background. This reminds me of other artists, like Käthe Kollwitz, who use printmaking to capture the struggles and humanity of everyday people. It is as if artists are in an ongoing conversation, exchanging ideas across time. Each one inspires the next to embrace uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.