Walking Malayan Couple 1921

Svend Rathsack created this sculpture of a Walking Malayan Couple with clay, though when exactly, we don't know. What I love about this sculpture is the coarseness of the clay, and the way Rathsack has left his fingerprints on it. You can almost feel him kneading and shaping the figures, pushing and pulling the clay to find the form within. The surface is uneven, raw, and full of texture, it gives a real sense of the artist's hand, don't you think? I imagine Rathsack, a European artist, intrigued by the lives of this couple, perhaps feeling like an outsider himself, observing them from a distance. How, as an artist, do you truly represent someone else's experience? Maybe the rough texture speaks to the challenge, to a certain humility in trying to depict another world. You can see echoes of other sculptors in this piece – something of Rodin's rough surfaces, maybe? It's like artists are always in conversation, across time, exchanging ideas and inspiring each other. This piece doesn't offer any easy answers, but invites you to look, to feel, and to wonder.