Het publiek! Possibly 1923

This etching, made by Hein von Essen in 1923-24, shows a crowd, or maybe just types of people, pressed together on a small rectangle. I think about the process of etching—how von Essen would have painstakingly layered the images and scratched into a plate with incredible precision. I imagine him bent over a table, magnifying glass in hand, slowly building up this multitude of faces with their distinct characteristics. The faces range from cartoonish to grotesque, with exaggerated features and strange expressions. There is a dark, cynical undertone to the work as it portrays the public as a seething mass of individuals devoid of individuality. I also see the lineage of other artists who have explored similar themes, like Daumier's caricatures of French society, or Grosz's biting satires of the Weimar Republic. Artists are in an ongoing conversation across time. Ultimately, this is a reminder that art is a form of expression that embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple readings.