Deer Dance Taos Pueblo 1946

Ira Moskowitz made this lithograph, Deer Dance Taos Pueblo, sometime in the 20th century. Look at all the lines, and how they're used to create shadow. It’s all about process: building up dark areas stroke by stroke. The surface is smooth, but the image is full of texture. It's mostly grayscale, but within that limited palette, the artist finds a wide range of tonal values. The figures are full of movement, but the figures are static. Take the central figure, for instance. It's so dark, so brooding, it almost feels like a solid block. Then, if you look closely at its face, you'll see so many details, like the way the artist used all those tiny lines to show how the light hits all that fur. This lithograph has a similar sense of line and shading to the work of artists like Kathe Kollwitz. Like Kollwitz, Moskowitz focuses on capturing human emotion, embracing the ambiguity inherent in artmaking.