Perched upon a Bust of Pallas. Illustration to The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe 1875

Edouard Manet made this lithograph, Perched upon a Bust of Pallas, to illustrate Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem, The Raven. It's a study in the expressive potential of a single material, ink, printed on paper. Manet coaxes a whole world of tones and textures out of lithography, a process involving a stone matrix and greasy crayon. We see rapid strokes, cross-hatching, and dense pools of shadow. Look closely, and you can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the stone, building up the image layer by layer. Manet's loose, gestural approach emphasizes the immediacy of the creative act, and there's an undeniable physicality to the print, a sense of direct engagement with the material. He's not just illustrating a poem. He's also exploring the very nature of image-making. By focusing on the artistic process and the materiality of the work, we can move beyond traditional interpretations of the subject matter and appreciate the artist's skill and vision.