Arbeider veegt de zwarte kliek weg 1904 - 1905

This is Albert Hahn’s ‘Arbeider veegt de zwarte kliek weg’, or ‘Worker Sweeping Away the Black Clique,’ made with etching. The graphic approach here is so direct, using a tonal palette to make a point. It’s like Hahn is saying, ‘Let’s not mess around, folks.’ Look at the marks making up the worker’s trousers, hatching to build shadow and mass. And then notice the marks making the swept away ‘clique.’ They become looser, chaotic, and less defined. Those swept away figures are all surface, like the ink has hardly touched the paper, ready to be brushed aside. There’s something brutal, sure, but also kind of poetic about how he uses these simple material contrasts to make his political point. You see this kind of thing in Kathe Kollwitz, too. Art as conversation, constantly building on what’s come before.