Bärtiger Mönch, emporblickend (exemplum doloris) 7 - 1869

Editor: This drawing, "Bärtiger Mönch, emporblickend (exemplum doloris)", or "Bearded Monk, looking up (example of grief)," was made by Henriette Vorwinkel in 1869. It’s charcoal and pencil on paper, and it's incredibly moving. The subject’s gaze is so intense... What captures your attention most when you look at this work? Curator: Oh, it’s the vulnerability, isn’t it? You feel as if you've stumbled into a very private moment, a soul searching for something just beyond reach. Look at the upward tilt of his face. Is it supplication? Hope? Perhaps it’s Vorwinkel's clever trick to evoke that very human yearning that flits through us all from time to time? And it is only heightened by her deliberate use of raw media! Do you sense how the artist embraced those stark blacks and whites, bare charcoal dustings, creating this ethereal almost other-worldly feel? Editor: Definitely. I almost feel intrusive looking at him. The title suggests "grief," but I see…more. A searching? A longing? Curator: Precisely! And I think there lies Vorwinkel’s mastery. The title gives us one key to the emotional realm she is exploring, yes, dolor, or sorrow, is present, undoubtedly... Yet grief rarely exists in a vacuum, does it? Doesn't the strongest sorrow bring with it the hope, even the faintest possibility of joy returning? Is that perhaps what this beautiful "exemplum" hints at? What do *you* think? Editor: That makes so much sense! It reframes the drawing. Now I see it not as simply sad, but hopeful. Thank you. Curator: And thank you for gifting me with *your* youthful eyes to see it all over again!