The Dead Mother and Her Child 1999

This is Edvard Munch’s, The Dead Mother and Her Child. The sepia tones of this etching pull you into a raw, almost unbearable moment. I imagine Munch hunched over the plate, digging into the metal, the lines vibrating with grief. Look at the child, hands clamped over her ears, eyes wide, a ruff framing her face like a grotesque halo. The lines are frantic, scrabbling to capture the horror, while the mother lies still and gaunt in the bed behind, rendered with a cold, detached precision. Maybe Munch was thinking of his own mother's death when he made this? The way the lines pull and tear at the surface feels like a scream made visible. It reminds me of other artists grappling with heavy stuff, like Käthe Kollwitz, who also knew how to make black lines bleed with feeling. Artists, we're all just trying to figure out how to live with the unbearable, using whatever tools we have.