Oorlogsslachtoffers liggend op een helling 1914 - 1930

Henri de Groux made this drawing called 'War Victims Lying on a Slope' with ink, and I’m guessing a very fine pen, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Imagine his hand moving swiftly across the page, building up these dense clusters of marks. You know, that kind of repetitive mark-making can be really trance-like. I find it helps me access a deeper space, almost like automatic drawing. Maybe he was trying to get at the horror of the scene, but also remove himself from it? The way these figures are arranged, all jumbled together, it's hard to distinguish one from another. What does it mean to become part of a mass? What does it mean to lose your individuality in conflict? It reminds me a little bit of Goya's war etchings, that same unflinching look at the brutality of war. It's like artists throughout time are grappling with the same questions, trying to make sense of the senseless. I feel a certain solidarity with them.