Ilusha Sick (Book X: The Boys, facing p.420) 1949

Fritz Eichenberg made this compelling illustration, using hatching and cross-hatching techniques to build tone. It's like he's carving emotion right into the page. Look at the way Eichenberg uses dense, almost frantic lines to create a sense of claustrophobia. The texture, you can almost feel the weight of the ink on paper. See how the darkness gathers around the figures, emphasizing their distress? Then there's the dog, straining forward. Each scratch of the tool adds to the overall tension. It's all so immediate and visceral. This piece has the graphic clarity of someone like Otto Dix or Kathe Kollwitz, those masters of social commentary who weren't afraid to get down and dirty with their materials. You get the feeling that artmaking for Eichenberg was a way of bearing witness, a way of grappling with the harsh realities of the world. It's not pretty, but it's powerfully human.