Breakdown c. 1939

Paul Weller made "Breakdown" using lithograph to create a somber scene. The marks build slowly, accumulating to a dense darkness to create an atmosphere of oppression. I’m thinking about the weight of the graphite, how it pushes down on the paper, mirroring the crushing weight in the lives of the family depicted. Look at the man in overalls – he is literally bent over under some invisible burden. The whole scene is built from tiny marks, a kind of obsessive labor, that somehow communicate the exhaustion and grief. The artist allows the image to emerge slowly in the making, like a photographic development process, or the slow crush of reality, revealing itself over time. Weller’s work reminds me of Kathe Kollwitz, another artist who used printmaking to depict the struggles of working-class families. Both artists embrace a kind of raw, unvarnished aesthetic, finding beauty in the grit and grime of everyday life. Art doesn’t have to be pretty. Sometimes it needs to be a mirror reflecting back the hard truths of the world.