Pâques (Easter) 1936

Stanley William Hayter made this etching, called Pâques or Easter, with fine lines and a stark monochromatic palette. Can’t you just imagine him in the print studio, hunched over a metal plate, the acid fumes filling the air? There’s a real sense of process here—a back-and-forth between intention and accident, control and release. See how the lines swarm and cluster, creating areas of deep shadow and stark relief? I wonder if Hayter was thinking about the frenetic energy of spring, the feeling of everything bursting forth at once? There's a kind of raw, untamed quality to the marks. It reminds me of the automatic drawings of the Surrealists, where the artist tries to bypass the conscious mind and tap into something deeper. That long, looping line in the center—it’s so decisive, so full of purpose. It almost feels like a signature, a gesture of defiance against the chaos around it. And, wow, the way the plate bites into the paper. You can almost feel the texture, the physicality of the medium. It's like he’s inviting us to touch, to feel the print with our hands, and to participate in the conversation.