Christ and the Money-Changers 1919

Curator: This is Eric Gill's "Christ and the Money-Changers," a wood engraving from the Tate Collection. Editor: Wow, the intensity jumps right out. It's a whirlwind of righteous anger, almost a contained explosion. Curator: Gill, born in 1882, engaged with religious themes throughout his career, often critiquing the relationship between spirituality and commerce. The composition itself is quite dynamic. Editor: Absolutely, the stark black and white heightens the drama. The figures are so stylized, yet there's such raw emotion in Christ's raised whip and the money-changers' postures. Makes you think about what we consider sacred versus profane today. Curator: Precisely. Gill's work invites us to examine those tensions and consider how institutions, even religious ones, navigate power and ethics. Editor: It's amazing how a simple print can ignite such a complex conversation. Makes you wonder what Gill himself would make of our current marketplace of ideas.