Vrouw met een waaier 1915

Lodewijk Schelfhout created this print, "Woman with a Fan," sometime in the early twentieth century. Here we see a woman holding a fan, rendered in a deliberately crude style. Behind her, the artist has sketched what seems to be a generic European city. The print was made during the period of the Weimar Republic, when many German artists turned to Expressionism in reaction against the perceived decadence of the old order. By radically simplifying form, artists looked to produce raw, emotionally charged images, or to lay bare what they saw as the social realities of the day. Schelfhout seems to be working in this tradition, using the printmaking medium to bring art to a wider public. To further understand this work, we might want to consider the history of printmaking as a democratic medium. It would be helpful to know more about Schelfhout and the cultural institutions in which he worked. How did he see the public role of art?