Gargantua: Chapter XVII 1942

Bernard Reder made this woodcut print called Gargantua: Chapter XVII, and, boy, did he choose a subject! It’s intense. The process of woodcut itself is pretty wild: cutting away at the block, bit by bit, until the image emerges in stark relief. I can imagine Reder’s hand carefully carving the figures, the arches, the swirling waters, maybe thinking about other printmakers like Dürer or the German Expressionists. The world has been swamped, and the people are scrambling to save themselves. There’s a real drama here, almost biblical. The jagged lines of the woodcut give everything a sense of urgency and chaos. This giant figure, maybe Gargantua himself, is clinging to a tree. And the people look terrified, trying to escape the flood. It’s interesting how Reder uses the black and white to create so much depth and movement. It's like he’s saying something about humanity’s struggle against forces bigger than ourselves. It also reminds me of a conversation between artists, each responding to the anxieties and dramas of their own time.