Minister de Visser en de bezuinigingen op kunstsubsidies 1918 - 1925

Patricq Kroon made this cartoon, Minister de Visser en de bezuinigingen op kunstsubsidies, with ink on paper, and what strikes me is the raw directness of the marks. It's like he’s thinking with the ink, letting the pen stutter and scratch its way across the page. The whole composition is built up from these energetic lines: bold outlines give way to frantic hatching. Look at the way he renders the shadow on the figure’s coat – a dense thicket of strokes, almost vibrating with energy. There’s a real physicality to the medium, you can practically feel the artist’s hand moving across the paper, building up the image layer by layer. The message is clear, but the beauty is in the messy, human process of its making. Think of someone like George Grosz, who used a similar style of caricature to skewer the political establishment, but with a bit more sarcasm.