"I will root up from my path whatever obstructs my progress toward becoming the master." ("Ich will alles um mich her ausrotten, was mich einschränkt, das ich nicht Herr bin.") 1922

George Grosz made this drawing with ink on paper. The sweeping lines must have been drawn confidently and fast, in an attempt to record the speed and voracity of industrial progress. The heavy, dark lines make this drawing very graphic, almost like a woodcut. I can see the artist wrestling with the subject matter, the push and pull between the heavy figure in the foreground and the industrial landscape in the background. How did he feel about it all? Grosz made a lot of work about this. He was part of a larger conversation that included other artists. Artists inspire each other and respond to one another's work, as the work responds to the world, and then other artists respond to that. It's like a telephone game, except instead of mishearing, you're mis-seeing, and then re-seeing. All of art history is like that.