Vrouw onderwijst over de levensfases van de mens, naast haar een aap en draaiorgelspeler 1910 - 1930

This etching by Joseph Uhl pictures a woman teaching about the stages of life, alongside an ape and an organ grinder. There’s something about the starkness of the scene, the raw lines, and the contrast between light and shadow that really grabs me. I can almost feel the artist’s hand at work, scratching away at the plate, trying to capture the ephemeral nature of existence. I wonder what Uhl was thinking as he created this image. Was he contemplating his own mortality? Was he making a statement about society? Or was he just trying to make something beautiful? The way he renders the figures reminds me of the expressionists, like Käthe Kollwitz. It's as if he’s tapping into some collective unconscious, some primal understanding of what it means to be alive, to suffer, and to create. It makes you realize that artists are in an ongoing conversation across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. It is this continuous conversation that helps us make sense of this crazy world.