Avril (April) 1951

Gy Szabo Bela made "Avril (April)" as a wood engraving, and you can almost feel the knife moving through the block. It’s all about process, right? You can see the artist thinking and feeling as they make these marks. Look at the texture, the way the light seems to be pushed around by these little strokes. It makes the sky feel like it's actually moving, kind of like a Van Gogh but carved into wood. The contrast between the dark tree and the bright sky is so intense. It feels like a metaphor for resilience, like the tree is standing tall against the chaos of the world. I see echoes of other printmakers in this, maybe someone like Kathe Kollwitz, who knew how to pack an emotional punch with black and white. But Bela has his own thing, a kind of raw honesty that comes from digging in and getting your hands dirty. It’s a reminder that art is about showing up and working through it, even when things get tough.