Drie kruisen op Golgotha before 1938

This etching, Drie kruisen op Golgotha, by R. Struben is all drama and light. I can see how the artist worked and reworked the plate. It’s a chiaroscuro field, the blacks scraped back to grey and white. It must have been tough to make, emotionally. I'm thinking about R. Struben in their studio, wiping away and then starting again, trying to evoke that moment of spiritual intensity, the atmosphere thick with emotion. It’s a brave artist who takes on such a loaded subject. That column of light might be a metaphor for the creative process itself, a search for meaning in the dark. It connects to other artists such as Rembrandt - that need to get the darkest dark next to the lightest light. We’re all in conversation with each other, riffing off each other's ideas. Painting is never really finished. It lives on, constantly evolving through our interpretations.