Stempellokaal 1931

Louis Cardinaals made this woodcut print, sometime in the 1930s, I’m guessing. Just look at this crowd of faces staring out at us. It's a scene teeming with humanity, all rendered in these stark black and white contrasts. I try to imagine Cardinaals with his tools, digging into the wood, carving away to reveal the figures emerging. It’s interesting to think about this process, almost like a sculptor chiseling away at stone, only here, the artist is working in reverse, building form from the negative space, each cut defining the contours of the figures. The faces are all so distinctive, full of character, but also kind of mournful. I wonder what Cardinaals was thinking about when he made this; was he capturing a specific moment, or more a feeling, a sense of collective anxiety perhaps? There’s a raw intensity to the whole thing, it’s not trying to be pretty, it just is. It's kind of like Käthe Kollwitz, but less overtly sentimental, and more about the feeling of the crowd, and what that feels like as a painter making marks.