Le Coup de Vent Vers L'Inconnu 1915

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen made this lithograph, Le Coup de Vent Vers L'Inconnu, using ink on paper. Look at how the greyscale ink sweeps across the page, a dance between light and shadow that sculpts the figures as much as it obscures them. It feels like Steinlen wasn’t just depicting a scene, but capturing a moment, a fleeting impression of a family battling against the odds. See how the ink is applied? In some areas, it’s dense and concentrated, creating deep blacks that define the figures, while in others, it’s so light it’s barely there, a whisper of tone that suggests the bleak expanse of the landscape. There’s a real sense of immediacy in the marks, as if Steinlen was working quickly, trying to capture the essence of the scene before it slipped away. My eye keeps getting drawn to the way the trees are rendered in the background: almost like abstract strokes, but together they evoke the feeling of wind. The simplified forms and expressive mark-making reminds me a bit of Käthe Kollwitz, though Kollwitz’s work has a more pronounced emotional intensity, Steinlen maintains a sense of detachment. What I love most is that the piece invites us to bring our own stories to it, because sometimes a little bit of ambiguity can say more than any definitive statement.