Minerva Protects Pax from Mars (‘Peace and War’) (2) 1998

Curator: Leon Kossoff, born in 1926, created this etching, "Minerva Protects Pax from Mars," now held at the Tate. Editor: My first impression is chaos, but a purposeful chaos. The frenetic lines feel raw, immediate, like a quickly captured dream. Curator: Yes, the imagery evokes a classical struggle. Minerva, goddess of wisdom, shielding Pax, peace, from Mars, the god of war. It taps into a deep well of cultural anxieties about conflict. Editor: And look at the hatching technique. You can almost feel the pressure of the tool, the artist grappling with the material. It's not just depiction; it’s an act of physical labor imprinted on the plate. Curator: Absolutely. These figures, though sketched, carry immense symbolic weight, reaching back through centuries of artistic and literary interpretations of these archetypes. Editor: The limited tonal range focuses us on the linework itself, the graphic quality. This feels less like a finished image and more like a stage in a longer process of artistic production. Curator: It's a powerful distillation of a timeless conflict. Editor: Seeing the process this way makes me think about our own struggles to find peace amid turmoil. A work of great immediacy.