Guards of Democracy 1937

Robert E. Calhon made this intense, shadowy print, Guards of Democracy, sometime in the mid-20th century. You can almost feel the artist working the lithographic crayon across the surface, building up this dark, moody atmosphere. I imagine Calhon, head bent close to the stone, trying to capture something of the fear and the tension of the war. There’s a lone guard standing, holding his weapon, while all around him fallen figures are surrounded by barbed wire. The mood is bleak, the forms indistinct. Look at how the litho crayon creates areas of deep shadow, broken by the white of the paper. Calhon is trying to create a feeling, to make us think, and to communicate the sense of constant threat under which the guards of democracy must live. It reminds me of Kathe Kollwitz and other artists who used printmaking to express their concerns with social justice and human suffering. Artists keep having conversations with one another, don't they, across time, inspiring and challenging each other, asking us to engage with difficult questions.