Man and Woman with Corpse 1914

Oskar Kokoschka made this print, Man and Woman with Corpse, with etching on paper. It feels like the kind of drawing you might do with a stick of charcoal, standing up, moving your whole arm. Except of course, it's not. It's a print, etched, probably very deliberately, though the process is designed to make it look spontaneous. The stark contrast from the dark lines to the raw paper, the way the space appears to ripple and undulate, all speaks to the physicality of the medium. The body is rendered with frantic energy, a tangle of lines capturing distress and despair. The corpse seems to be mocking them, a sardonic grin spread across its face. Take a look at the background too: the peaks of the mountains mimic the jagged lines of the figures. You could see a parallel to Munch's The Scream, also dealing with the emotional rawness of the human condition. With both artists, ambiguity trumps a neat and tidy resolution.