Pantagruel: Livre II, Chapter XXV 1942

This print, made by Bernard Reder, is all about line, isn’t it? The marks, etched into the plate, show you everything: the sea, the sails, the bodies straining to pull this epic ship. Look at the way Reder uses hatching and cross-hatching to build up tone and texture, there’s a real physicality to the medium. It’s as if he’s sculpting the image with his lines, and there’s a real sense of movement and energy in the way the lines dance and swirl across the surface, especially in the water. Then there’s the figures that line the deck; they are at once classical in their form and also somehow primitive, raw. It reminds me a little of Picasso's etchings, and also recalls the work of artists like Max Beckmann or Otto Dix, who were similarly preoccupied with the human figure and the human condition. All of these artists, like Reder, are engaged in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be human, and how we can make sense of the world through art. There’s no right or wrong way to interpret it, so just let your imagination run wild.