Gargantua: Chapter XXXVI 1942

Bernard Reder made this woodcut, Gargantua: Chapter XXXVI, and it feels like he was wrestling with the block, carving his way through the resistance of the material. It’s all black and white, high contrast, and full of frenetic energy. I imagine him hacking away, driven by some wild tale, maybe Rabelais’s novel itself. What's so cool about the book is how it talks about the body, about excess, and about the messiness of life. Reder captures that same feeling here. He's not trying to be delicate, but instead he goes right at it! The figures are kind of grotesque, exaggerated, yet dynamic. You see the influence of German Expressionism here, right? Artists like Kirchner and Heckel also went straight at the woodcut. He probably looked at folk art too; that unrefined quality is so affecting. You feel the artist’s hand and intention so directly.