Extreem geweld tegen arbeiders 1920

Mihály Biró made this print, "Extreme violence against workers," with lithography. You can almost feel the immediacy of the artist's hand, can't you? The scratches and smudges frozen in time. I imagine him, the artist, hunched over the stone, pushing and pulling the greasy crayon across the surface, trying to get the image just right. There’s a raw, almost painful honesty in the depiction of violence. The artist’s hand moves rapidly, capturing the heat of the moment. Look at the way the lines describe the frenzied movement, the whipping. It reminds me of some Goya, and the work of Kollwitz— artists who weren't afraid to depict the horrors of war and injustice. Biró isn’t just showing us violence; he’s inviting us to feel it, to question it. It’s a conversation, really, between the artist, the subject, and us, the viewers.