Tornado (Le typhon) 

Alphonse Legros made this etching, “Tornado,” using a metal plate, acid, and ink. It’s not a painting or sculpture, but a print – a matrix-based work. Consider the labor involved. First, Legros would have painstakingly drawn the scene into a wax ground on the metal plate. Then, he immersed the plate in acid, which bit into the exposed lines, creating grooves. Ink was then forced into these grooves, and the plate pressed onto paper. The result is a mirror image of the original design. The image itself depicts women struggling against wind and weather. The rendering is crude, etched lines scratched with an urgency reflecting the scene’s drama. These women are not idealized figures, but working-class, their bodies bent by labor and hardship. Legros here links the physical effort required to produce the etching to the physical effort depicted. The final print is far from the traditional understanding of fine art, blurring the boundaries between skilled craft, social commentary, and the realities of working-class life.