Polo 1941

Louis Schanker made this dynamic black and white woodcut, named "Polo," sometime in the mid-20th century. It's got this incredible energy, right? I can almost hear the thwack of the mallet on the ball. Look at how Schanker carves out the figures of the players and horses with these bold, angular shapes. It's like he's trying to capture the speed and intensity of the game itself. I imagine Schanker, sleeves rolled up, wrestling with the woodblock, each cut a deliberate attempt to distill the essence of the sport. I wonder if he was thinking about the work of the futurists, who were also obsessed with motion and technology? Or maybe the bold graphic style of the German Expressionists? Anyway, what is so cool is how artists are always in conversation, borrowing and riffing off each other's ideas across time. It makes you think, right?