Untitled (Frightened Men by Machine Gun; Spanish Civil War) c. 1937

Victor Szucs created this lithograph, Untitled (Frightened Men by Machine Gun; Spanish Civil War), depicting the terror of war. The raised hands and open mouths of the men evoke a primal scream, a universal expression of fear. Consider how this gesture appears throughout art history, from the figures in the ancient Greek sculpture of the Laocoön, caught in the coils of a serpent, to Edvard Munch's modern expressionist painting, The Scream. It is a direct, unmediated expression of psychological distress. The horror of the machine gun adds another layer. The contrast between the cold, mechanical precision of the weapon and the raw, exposed emotion of the men is startling. This recalls the Dance of Death motif from the Middle Ages, where Death, often personified as a skeleton, leads people from all walks of life to their graves. It serves as a memento mori, reminding viewers of their own mortality. It is a stark reminder that the dance continues, with technology ever-complicating the choreography.