Passion II (Leidenschaft II) 1914

Wilhelm Lehmbruck made this etching, Passion II, and when I look at the marks, it feels like the plate was almost caressed, like he was trying to coax an image into being. The surface is fascinating. Look how he's built up the tonal range through these tiny, precise lines and textures, using the barest minimum to convey a sense of mass and volume. The color, almost non-color, brings to mind an X-ray, revealing the hidden emotional architecture beneath the skin. I'm drawn to how the figures emerge from the ground, their contours softly defined, almost dissolving into the background. There’s a quality here that reminds me of Rodin – that sense of figures emerging from the block, caught between form and formlessness. And that's what art should do, right? Show us something we haven't quite seen before, in a way we hadn't expected.