Descent from the Cross 1640

Editor: This is Wenceslaus Hollar’s "Descent from the Cross," created around 1640. It's a print, residing here at the Met. The sheer weight of grief is palpable, isn’t it? I find myself drawn to the cross in the background, almost as a looming shadow. What strikes you most about this engraving? Curator: That looming shadow, exactly! It’s funny, isn’t it? How darkness defines the light. Hollar uses these delicate lines to depict such profound sorrow, almost like etching a collective breath held tight. For me, the stark contrast and the clustered figures really hammer home the emotional density – can you almost feel their desperation, like a physical pressure? I wonder, how does it make you feel versus something with all the colors of the rainbow? Editor: That’s beautifully put – a collective breath held tight. I suppose it’s a more immediate, raw experience, wouldn’t you say, compared to something vibrantly colorful and emotionally distant? Curator: Precisely! There's something uniquely powerful about the unadorned truth, the bones of a story laid bare. Plus, in a world then exploding with color, it would have read so very differently than we perhaps read it now. Hollar, you sly dog, you make us FEEL. You know, baroque art is frequently brimming with this flair and theatrics – yet Hollar opts for the raw emotional exposure. Is this an elegy, or perhaps an awakening? Editor: I think both? An end, but also the promise of something new, something reborn. I’ll never look at a black and white print the same way again. Curator: Yes! We unravel history one shade at a time! Bravo!