Portret van Dante Alighieri en Beatrice Portinari 1922

This is a woodcut print of Dante and Beatrice by Bernard Essers. The solid black ink makes them look solemn. I love the way the artist has carved out the shapes to define these figures. Imagine the artist inking the block and pressing it onto paper, transferring their vision with a decisive thud. The faces emerge from this dark ground, caught in a moment of shared melancholy. There’s something about the weight of the ink, the sharpness of the lines, that feels so deliberate, so full of intention. I can feel the artist searching for the right expression, the perfect angle of the head. It reminds me of other printmakers like Munch or Beckmann, who were also wrestling with how to represent inner states through external forms. It's as if Essers is asking, how do we hold onto beauty and love in a world that seems determined to break our hearts? It's all a big conversation, right? Artists talking to each other across time, trying to figure out what it means to be human.