Head of a Poilu 1919 - 1920

Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac made this etching, "Head of a Poilu," using delicate lines. The way the ink is applied—almost like whispers on paper—makes me think about artmaking as a conversation, a back-and-forth between what you intend and what the materials allow. Look at how the face emerges through a network of fine, cross-hatched marks. The texture isn’t just visual; you can almost feel the weight of the lines pressing into the page, creating this poignant face. There’s something deeply human in the way the face is revealed, not explicitly stated but found through a process of layering. Thinking about his contemporaries, I see a connection to artists like Picasso, who were similarly invested in exploring the expressive potential of line. But where Picasso often veered into abstraction, Segonzac remains grounded in the tangible, using the humblest of marks to convey depth. It’s a reminder that art, at its core, is about seeing the world anew, and that even the simplest gesture can hold a multitude of meanings.