In the Trenches c. 1914 - 1919

Jean-Louis Forain made this drawing, In the Trenches, with chalk, and you can see the way he's built up the image through layers of marks, a real sense of process. The texture is rough, immediate. Look at the way he suggests form with these smudged, broken lines. It's not about perfection but more about capturing a feeling, an atmosphere, and the bleakness of the scene. There’s a section at the bottom of the image, where he’s sketched the ground, using these short, sharp marks, almost like teeth. Forain was a contemporary of Degas, and you can sense a similar interest in capturing modern life with such immediacy. But there’s a rawness here, a starkness that feels very particular to Forain’s vision. It reminds us that art doesn't need to be polished or finished. Sometimes, the most powerful works are the ones that show their working, the ones that feel closest to the artist's hand and mind.