Eakins: 1895 1960

Leonard Baskin made this etching, Eakins: 1895, using black ink on a plate, then pressed onto paper. What strikes me is how the density of the marks seems to be a process of searching for the subject within the darkness. The overall texture is rough and brooding, and the details emerge hesitantly, the eye is heavy with an intensity, it's like he's staring right through you, or maybe he's just really tired. The marks are incredibly dense on the right, and the way it fades into the light on the left makes me think about the way memory can be obscured, or the way the past fades as we move forward. The face is made up of a constellation of tiny lines that, up close, might seem abstract. It reminds me of some of the etchings of Rembrandt, but with a more modern sensibility. This piece, like much great art, isn't about answers. It's about questions, and about the messy, beautiful, and sometimes painful process of trying to make sense of it all.