Menigte aan de rand van een verwoeste stad 1916

Henri de Groux made this print, "Menigte aan de rand van een verwoeste stad," with etching. Look at those marks—all those tiny, anxious lines making up the crowd huddled against the burning city. I wonder what de Groux was thinking about, working on this plate, etching those lines. It's a whole process, you know, covering the plate, scratching into it, dunking it in acid. The light and dark are really working overtime here, right? You can feel the heat, the smoke, the weight of the tragedy. The people are all squished together. One woman throws her arms out, maybe she’s trying to help? These aren't just figures; they're a kind of collective feeling, a feeling loads of artists have tried to capture. So many artists, then and now, keep returning to these big themes—suffering, hope, despair. They all talk to each other somehow, across time.