Landscape of War c. 1944

Rudolph T. Pen made this lithograph, "Landscape of War," and it's a swirl of dark and light, a process of pulling back the curtain on something devastating. Look at the way he builds up the scene with these nervous, scratchy lines. The bodies, the ruins, the sky – everything feels raw, like it's been dragged kicking and screaming onto the paper. It’s not just about what you see, but how you feel it. In the foreground, that tangle of figures becomes a focal point. Limbs and faces merge, a mass of suffering. Those marks have a real physical presence; you can almost feel the grit and texture of the stone. It reminds me of Goya's "Disasters of War," that same unflinching look at human horror. Pen isn't giving us answers, but he's making us look, making us feel the weight of it all.