Sous la Botte 1915

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen made this drawing, "Sous la Botte," with pencil. It's all about the process here, isn't it? The artist has let the marks breathe. You can see the searching lines, where the pencil has been building up the figures gradually. The texture is everything in a drawing like this. Notice the almost frantic scribbling in the background, compared with the more defined contour lines used to depict the soldier and the figure beneath his boot. The rough, almost agitated marks give the drawing a real sense of urgency, as if Steinlen had to get this down on paper quickly. Look at the way the shadow cast by the soldier almost merges with the figure he's standing on. It's like one form is consuming the other. This reminds me a little of Käthe Kollwitz, another artist who used drawing to express political and social commentary, but Steinlen has a graphic immediacy that's all his own. There's no one way to read this image, and that's what makes it so powerful.