Cruising Sailing Ships, 2 (Kreuzende Segelschiffe, 2) 1919

Lyonel Feininger made this woodcut print, Cruising Sailing Ships, using just black ink on paper. It looks like he was wrestling with Cubism and Expressionism at the same time, trying to figure out what ships and the sea *feel* like. The stark black lines carve out these crystalline shapes, kinda sharp and splintery. Look at how he breaks everything down into facets – the hulls of the ships, the sails, even the water. There is this lovely compression of space, and you can almost feel the push and pull of the waves. See that dark wedge cutting in from the bottom left? It's simple but it creates a sense of depth, and it makes the ships feel like they’re really moving. Feininger's work always reminds me of Paul Klee. They both shared this playful, almost childlike approach to serious formal problems. It's like they were redrawing the world according to their own, very cool, inner logic.