Alyosha among the Tombs (Book VII: Alyosha, facing p.252) 1949

Fritz Eichenberg made this engraving, ‘Alyosha among the Tombs’ to illustrate Dostoevsky’s novel, "The Brothers Karamazov." There’s so much careful hatching here, but it all feels so immediate and raw. It’s about grief, after all, and somehow the black and white adds to the starkness of the scene. Look at the way the marks build up to create the shadows, like around the base of the tombstones. It’s so physical. You can almost feel the scratch of the tool on the plate. And then there’s that soft light, like a halo, around the priest’s head. I see a bit of Käthe Kollwitz in Eichenberg's work, that same sense of humanity and despair. Both artists weren’t afraid to tackle the big, messy emotions. For me, art's often at its best when it asks tough questions and doesn't offer easy answers.