Cliffside 

Ernest D. Roth’s etching, Cliffside, presents a stark, angular house clinging to a steep slope. The skeletal trees, with their bare branches reaching skyward, are a powerful symbolic element. Trees have long represented life, death, and rebirth. Their leafless state speaks to a period of dormancy, a visual echo of mortality. Yet, we understand that spring will follow, and life will return. This cyclical motif appears across cultures, from ancient Egyptian beliefs in regeneration symbolized by the sprouting Osiris, to the Norse Yggdrasil, a cosmic tree connecting different worlds. Perhaps Roth, consciously or not, taps into our collective memory. The bare trees evoke feelings of vulnerability and impermanence but also resilience. The house, precariously perched, mirrors this tension, creating a scene laden with both anxiety and a strange, enduring beauty. This image resonates because it speaks to a primal understanding of nature's cycles and the human struggle for stability within them.