Nocturne 1939

Isac Friedlander made this woodcut, Nocturne, in 1939, and the whole scene just throbs with the labor of that process. Look at all those tiny marks, a web of lines creating the texture of the man’s coat, the surface of the bench, even the hazy glow of the advertisement behind him. It’s a testament to the hours of patient cutting that went into its making. There’s a lot of visual information here, but it’s the contrast that really makes it sing. The way the deep, velvety blacks push forward, and the whites recede, carving out forms like the sleeping man, hunched over with exhaustion on the park bench. Friedlander directs the eye to the intricate details, those hands, relaxed but worn. You can almost feel the weight of his weariness in the density of the shadows. This reminds me of some of the darker, moodier prints of Käthe Kollwitz, where the human form is used to express deep feeling. Both artists share this capacity to find light in the darkness, a kind of rough poetry that lingers long after you’ve looked away.