Portrait of a Man 1916

Werner Gothein’s “Portrait of a Man” is a woodcut print, and it really grabs you with its bold contrasts and rough, expressive lines. You can see the artist's hand in every mark; it’s all about the process, the carving, the inking, and the pressing. The texture is what gets me. Look at the way Gothein used the gouge to create this surface that is both graphic and tactile. The stark black ink emphasizes the physical act of cutting into the wood. It’s almost sculptural, like a relief. And the face, those deeply etched lines around the eyes and mouth—they speak to a life lived. The solid blocks of black create this tension, almost claustrophobic, with the areas of light. I see something of Edvard Munch in it, that same raw emotionality, a similar embrace of distortion. This piece, like all art, shows us that there isn't just one way to see; that everything is filtered through someone's experience.