Two Soldiers Looking at a Placard c. 1918

Jean-Louis Forain made this drawing, *Two Soldiers Looking at a Placard*, using a dry drawing material—charcoal or graphite, maybe even conté—on paper. The image is constructed with many short strokes, capturing the figures with an economy of means. I imagine the artist sketching in a notebook—or on a loose sheet of paper—in a public space. You have to work fast. How to convey information with a limited amount of marks? The image is light, almost weightless, made up of a network of tentative lines and erasures. But that one assertive stroke on the shoulder of the soldier on the right is a gesture of empathy and connection. It pulls the whole thing together and communicates feeling and meaning. Forain was working in the tradition of Daumier, and later artists like Grosz, who also addressed the impact of war on the populace. He knew that the history of art is a conversation across time; we’re all in dialogue with each other.