Café 1935 - 1943

Mortimer Borne made this etching called "Café" sometime in the 20th century. It's a flurry of lines, kind of nervous and searching, mapping out the blurry energy of people gathered in a public space. I can imagine Borne, hunkered down with his etching tools, trying to capture that vibe. He's not going for realism here, right? It's more about the feeling of being in a crowd, the way faces and bodies overlap and blur together, the white of the page acting like a burst of light in all this smoky action. The way he scratched those lines into the plate reminds me of a cross between social realism and German Expressionism. Like he's channeling some of those early 20th-century anxieties about modern life, but with a touch of humor and affection for his fellow humans. It’s like he’s saying, "We're all just trying to connect, even if we're a little lost and confused." I feel that. Don't you? I guess artists are always in conversation, picking up on each other's frequencies and trying to make sense of the world. It's pretty neat.