Mad House, November 13 1929

James N. Rosenberg made this lithograph in 1929, and its full of the nervous energy of a world on the brink. You can almost feel the artist wrestling with the stone, digging into it, scraping back. I imagine him, sleeves rolled up, brow furrowed, trying to capture a feeling, not just a scene. Look at the way he renders the crowd – a sea of faces, all anxiety and despair. The marks are jagged, urgent, like charcoal sketches, and the composition is chaotic. The date looms, a stark reminder of the looming economic crash. What was Rosenberg thinking as he made this? Was he trying to warn us, to capture the madness he saw unfolding? It reminds me of other artists who've grappled with the weight of history, like Kathe Kollwitz, or even Goya, who also knew how to make darkness visible. There's a conversation happening across time, artists responding to each other, grappling with the same big questions. And here we are, still looking, still trying to make sense of it all.