Illustration to Voltaire, "Candide" 1948

In 1948, Imre Reiner created this illustration to Voltaire's "Candide" using an etching technique. Reiner returns to a satirical novel written almost two centuries earlier by one of the key intellectuals of the Enlightenment. The image seems to encapsulate the mood of Voltaire's biting critique of the political and intellectual status quo. We see, in Reiner's distinctive graphic style, the figures from the novel contorted by the drama and misfortune that befalls them. Reiner made the etching in Switzerland shortly after World War II and perhaps, for him, Voltaire’s satire resonated with the failures of European society, politics, and culture that led to such barbarism and destruction. Understanding this image depends on knowing the literary and political history to which it refers. We might, as historians of art and culture, consider how and why particular works of art speak across the ages.