Circusartiesten 1916

This is a woodcut of circus performers made by Maria Uhden around 1916. I can almost feel Uhden carving away at the block, figuring out which bits to leave and which to take away, letting the black shapes emerge. Imagine her, watching a circus, then going back to the studio and trying to remember the feeling of it, not just how it looked. The horse rearing, the acrobat in mid-air – a swirl of bodies caught in a moment of exhilaration. I bet she was trying to capture that energy, trying to figure out how to translate it into something solid, something real, on paper. I love how graphic this is, how the black ink sits so assertively on the page, all those angular shapes. It makes me think of other expressionist prints, where artists were pushing the limits of representation, trying to find new ways to convey emotion and experience. It’s like a conversation across time, artists responding to each other, inspiring each other to see the world in new ways.