Death and the Unhappy Man 1927 - 1930

Marc Chagall made this etching, Death and the Unhappy Man, using black ink to create a spooky scene. There's a lot of frantic, scratchy lines which I think are meant to evoke a feeling of anxiety. Making art is a process, and the artist has to decide when to stop working on a piece, but here it feels like maybe Chagall could have stopped a little earlier to leave more to the imagination. The texture is raw and intense. It's like he's digging into the surface, revealing something hidden. There's this figure on the left, maybe Death, with a crazy grin and tall hat, reaching out as if inviting you into a nightmare. It’s not a pleasant invitation. I see a toppled chair. The mark making is so frantic, it seems to me like the artist is saying that life can feel like a chaotic mess. This reminds me a little of Otto Dix's war etchings. Dix's work is more graphic and grotesque, but both artists share this sense of using printmaking to explore some pretty dark stuff. Art's not always about beauty, right? Sometimes it's about staring into the abyss.