Kammerade. Porquoi cette froideur c. 1914 - 1919

Jean-Louis Forain made "Kammerade. Porquoi cette froideur" with a pencil, and the pale gray of the graphite really sets a somber mood. You can imagine Forain, watching, sketching, trying to make sense of the senselessness of war. I wonder what it was like for Forain to create this drawing. Did he feel a responsibility to show the horror? It seems he has captured an intimate moment between two figures in what is presumably a war scene. Look at the body language of the figure on the left—arms outstretched, almost pleading—and the figure on the right, barely present, rendered as a ghost. The lack of color intensifies the emotional weight; the starkness allows for a direct confrontation with the image's content. It’s like a conversation—perhaps a desperate attempt to connect amidst chaos, or a silent question posed to the indifferent void. It's a document but also a form of expression.