Les Francs-Tireurs 1915

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen created this drawing, probably using charcoal or conte crayon, sometime during World War I. Look at how Steinlen uses the side of the crayon to create a sense of atmosphere, almost like a fog, hanging in the air. The feeling you get from the piece comes from the rough texture, the scratching and smudging that feels raw and immediate. The surface is built up from many short, nervous marks, especially in the figures to the left. There's a real tension between the way the figures are so carefully delineated and the more freely rendered background. That ominous cloud in the sky could be a distant explosion or just more gathering darkness, but it really casts a pall over everything. Steinlen was an illustrator, and you can see the influence of Daumier and Goya in this work – all artists who used their skills to comment on the human condition in times of crisis.