Leonard Baskin AET 42 1961 - 1962

Leonard Baskin made "Leonard Baskin AET 42" using a woodcut, with the date of its creation unknown. I always admire artists who reduce their palette and make every colour work hard, like Baskin has done here. The areas of black are contrasted with a kind of sickly yellow-green, and this limited palette gives the image a visceral quality, like something living or decaying. The dense hatching and cross-hatching make the image feel full, and give it a kind of emotional weight. The lines aren’t descriptive, so much as expressive; they form a topography of emotion that conveys the gravity and intensity of the man’s gaze. There’s a real tension between representation and abstraction that I find engaging; the marks themselves seem to have a life of their own. I see echoes of Käthe Kollwitz, another artist drawn to the graphic arts, whose work conveys a similar sense of human suffering and resilience. Ultimately, it’s the work’s ambiguity that I find most compelling. Baskin offers no easy answers. Instead, he invites us to confront the complexities of human existence.