Man with a Cat on his Lap 1918

Heinrich Campendonk made this woodcut of a ‘Man with a Cat on his Lap’ sometime around 1918. I imagine him, a steady hand guiding the blade, carefully carving into the block, removing slivers of wood to reveal the image. The stark contrast between black and white creates a graphic punch, and makes me think about Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and other Die Brücke artists who favoured woodcut printmaking. The marks are deep and expressive, particularly in the man's face, where lines converge to create a haunted expression. Look at the abstract shapes floating in the background! What’s that about? The cat, held tenderly in his lap, is a soft, comforting presence in the image. I wonder if Campendonk had a beloved cat. He probably did! Artists often turned to the natural world for solace. His process, like all artists, is a mix of planning and accident, inspiration and problem-solving. Each mark carries intention, but also yields to the unpredictable nature of the medium. And he's having a conversation with the history of the medium itself.