Avarice (L'avarice) 1904

James Ensor made this etching, Avarice, with ink on paper. Imagine him, bending over the plate, scratching away with a needle to create this vision of greed and violence. It’s all there in stark black and white, a frenzy of lines. You can feel Ensor’s hand moving across the plate, hesitating, pressing, releasing. Those tiny etched lines build up to these grotesque figures looming over a table piled with coins, each one like a tiny sun reflecting back the horror. The character on the left has these claw-like hands that want to snatch it all. Ensor really gets after the dark side of human nature. I imagine him thinking about the way greed consumes people, turning them into monsters, and he's not afraid to show it. It’s a brutal vision, but there’s also a kind of dark humor. I think he would have gotten a kick out of other artists responding to his work. He makes you wanna get at it yourself.