Revolution 1919 - 1920

Franz Wilhelm Seiwert made this print, Revolution, with what looks like woodcut, using stark black ink on a tan piece of paper. The rawness of the medium is what makes this piece work, I think, because you can really feel the artist's hand in the marks. There’s such an economy of detail in the way Seiwert has rendered the figure, as if the very act of making the print is a revolution in itself. It's so stripped back, so reduced to simple gestures, that you get a sense of the artist grappling with the essence of form and meaning. Just look at the way the word 'Revolution' is barely legible, fragmented and almost violently disrupted. It’s like the idea of revolution is so powerful that it's bursting apart. Seiwert’s work shares an affinity with artists like Käthe Kollwitz, who also used printmaking to convey strong social messages, but it also makes me think of Josef Albers, especially in the bold simplicity of the forms. It's a reminder that art is always in conversation with itself, building on what came before while pushing into new territories.