Aan het front geen nieuws 1918

Willem van Schaik made this drawing, titled 'Aan het front geen nieuws,' with what looks like ink or charcoal. I'm thinking about the ground: maybe it’s snow, or ash. And the birds, some perched, some swooping, others are just ominous silhouettes in the sky. The sweeping marks are so full of gesture. Is this drawing about hope? Or the lack of it? There's a hand reaching up from the ground, like a failed resurrection. I imagine Van Schaik hovering over the page, smudging and blurring. You can almost feel his anxiety, the pressure of the moment he was trying to capture. I see echoes of Goya’s war scenes, or maybe even some of the German Expressionists. It's like artists are always having this conversation across time, responding to each other’s nightmares, inspiring each other to find new ways to express the unspeakable.