Illustration to Voltaire, "La Princesse de Babilone" 1941

This Illustration to Voltaire, "La Princesse de Babilone" by Imre Reiner is a dance of dark and light. Look at the scratchy, urgent marks – you can almost feel the artist wrestling with the plate, digging in to pull out these forms. I imagine Reiner thinking about Picasso and his take on faces, but pushing it further into this almost haunted space. The figures seem both present and fading away. They are built up with these dense, rhythmic lines, like a kind of code. What's particularly cool is how those heavy blacks contrast with the pale paper, giving the image a real graphic punch. You can see in the way he overlaps and layers the marks that he’s figuring it out as he goes, embracing the accidental. It's a process of discovery, and we get to be part of it.