Der Pfeifer 1948

Imre Reiner pulled this print, Der Pfeifer, or The Piper, from a plate sometime in the mid twentieth century. Look at those marks—so fast and sure, full of hatched lines that create dark shadows and textures. I imagine Reiner bent over the plate, scratching away to produce the image. Did he work from a sketch, or let the forms emerge as he went? I like to think the latter. The shapes are weird, gothic, with skeletal hands on a long flute, and a ghostly, hooded figure floating to the right of the piper. Is this a scene from a story, or a dream, or a nightmare? Maybe it's all those things at once. The cross-hatching in the upper portion of the image feels urgent, full of energy. This reminds me that artists are always talking to each other across time, finding inspiration from the past, building on the ideas of others, while also making something entirely new. It’s a conversation without end.