Tod und Künstler (Death and the Artist) Possibly 1921 - 1922

Lovis Corinth made this print, Tod und Künstler, which translates to Death and the Artist, using etching techniques. You can really see the process in the final piece. It’s not about hiding the marks but letting them build an image from simple lines. The texture is raw. Close up, you can see the scratchy, almost frantic lines digging into the plate. Look at the artist’s face and then glance up to the left, to the skull looming behind him. The contrast in mark-making between the two figures is so slight, they almost become one. See the way the shading on the face is built up from these tiny, chaotic strokes? It's like life and death are in constant conversation. Corinth reminds me of other artists who worked with such immediacy like Käthe Kollwitz. Both unafraid to show the raw emotionality of human experience. Ultimately, art is a way of grappling with the big, messy questions, like mortality, and finding some kind of answer in the process.