The Agony in the Garden 1940

Esther Newport's "The Agony in the Garden" is printed in strong colors, dark blues and greens are set against the halo of yellow light behind Christ. Imagine Newport, alone in her studio. Did she feel the weight of the story she was illustrating? Those sleeping figures are a tangle of limbs and heavy cloaks. I wonder if the artist herself felt abandoned, drawing them. The blue ink Newport uses for the trees reminds me of other artists’ prints that I have seen. She might have looked at and been inspired by artists from a different time period. Art is never created in isolation. We are always in conversation with artists of the past. When we look at a picture like this, we bring our own experiences to it. We fill in the blanks and make it our own. We think about our own questions and our own vulnerabilities. Maybe that’s why we keep looking at art.