Mortality 1914

Jakob Steinhardt made this etching, Mortality, in 1914, and the feeling I get is that he worked and reworked the plate to arrive at this final image. It feels like a palimpsest of lines, one layer cut over another. I can imagine him trying to capture the precise way the skin folds and hangs on an aging face, or the way the branches of a tree reach towards the sky, only to be confronted with the stark reality of death. But he doesn’t give up! He keeps digging and scraping at the plate, adding more and more detail until the image is almost overflowing with information. There's a tension between the beauty of the natural world and the harsh reality of mortality - an argument that is so interesting to witness. And it’s kind of funny because Steinhardt isn’t just talking about mortality, he’s also revealing the slow, labored, tenacious work involved in making an etching. What a perfect metaphor! He, like other artists, is inspiring conversation across time, and encouraging us to embrace ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations and meanings.