The Old Buffoon (Book II: An Unfortunate Gathering, facing p.30) 1949

Fritz Eichenberg made this illustration for Book II of ‘An Unfortunate Gathering’ using wood engraving, and you can really see that process at work here. It’s all about the starkness of the blacks and whites, building form through very fine, controlled marks. It’s this intense, deliberate way of working that really grabs me, like each line is a carefully considered decision. Look at the way he’s rendered the faces, how the light catches the planes and hollows of their cheeks. Eichenberg uses the hatching to define the textures of the robes, the weight of the fabric. And then there’s the hair, an almost chaotic scribble of lines that somehow, magically, comes together to create a sense of unruly volume. It’s the kind of mark-making that feels both precise and totally free. In a way, I am reminded of Kathe Kollwitz, in that commitment to the power of graphic art. With this piece Eichenberg reminds us that art isn’t just about what you see, but how you see it, and how you translate that vision into something tangible and meaningful.