Figuur met bochel 1926

This is Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita's "Figure with a Hunchback", made with a woodcut. The piece is so stark, so black and white. It's about reduction, cutting away to find the image. Isn't that like life? We think we're adding, but really we are subtracting. I like the way the parallel lines carve out the landscape, so severe and flat, like a stage set, and the way the figure is almost swallowed by the darkness, yet somehow endures. The hunchback, a dark mass, echoes the shadows, a physical manifestation of burden or perhaps resilience. The stick he leans on, is it support, or is it a means of measuring his path? I'm thinking of Käthe Kollwitz and her raw, emotional prints, or even some of the stark woodcuts of Edvard Munch. It reminds us that art isn't just about what we see, but what we feel, what we carry, and what we leave behind.