The Mystery of Earth (Book VIII: Mitya, facing p.284) 1949

Fritz Eichenberg made this wood engraving, The Mystery of Earth, for Dostoyevsky's novel *The Brothers Karamazov*. Look at the sky; it has this feeling of being both empty and full of shimmering, twinkling stars, which is just like life, right? The figure walking on the road seems to be in conversation with this grand, mysterious scene. What do you think they are talking about? Eichenberg was a master of the wood engraving; it's a relief printing process, where you carve into the end grain of a wood block. I can imagine him carefully carving out each tiny mark, allowing for the image to appear. Wood engraving is a slow process, but he was really good at it! Eichenberg’s work reminds me of other graphic artists like Käthe Kollwitz and Lynd Ward, who also used printmaking to tell stories. There is this intimate conversation between artists, across time, responding to each other and to literature, which can be so inspiring.