Frontispiece for "l'affaire Clémenceau" 1905

Paul-Albert Besnard etched the Frontispiece for "l'affaire Clémenceau," and it's all lines, lines, lines creating light and shade with such precision and care. I think about the patience involved, the looking, and the re-looking. Besnard meticulously scratched into the plate to create this image, and what an image it is! We have a man, maybe the writer, sitting at his desk, his brow furrowed, and below him, as if emerging from his subconscious, a woman reclines. Was Besnard thinking about the relationship between the conscious and unconscious, or the tension between the writer and his muse? There's a beautiful contrast between the sharp, angular lines of the desk and the soft, flowing lines of the woman's body. It's almost as if he is in dialogue with artists like Munch or Ensor, who also explored these themes of psychological intensity and interiority. It reminds us that art is not made in a vacuum, artists are always talking to each other, riffing off each other, and adding their own unique voice to the conversation.