Tobias and the Angel 1958

Leonard Baskin made this image, Tobias and the Angel, with ink on paper. Look at the angel’s wing. It is not soft and fluffy, but sharp and menacing, with each feather rendered as an individual, dangerous, black shape. The line work throughout this image is intense, like he’s really digging into the surface. The figures have a dark, brooding quality, and the lines are often used to reveal muscle and bone. Baskin seems to relish in the physical forms of his subjects. There is a gothic intensity in the way Baskin renders the folds of the Angel’s robe. Each line is deeply considered to describe the fall of the fabric, which has a remarkable sense of volume given the restriction of the black and white palette. I’m reminded of Kathe Kollwitz’s prints, which also depict grief and pain through expressive mark making. Like Kollwitz, Baskin seems to embrace a sort of raw emotional honesty.