Explosion 1936

Armin C. Hansen made this drawing called 'Explosion' with ink on paper. You can see the artist’s hand moving around with a nervous energy, scratching back and forth to build up darks and lights and capture the drama of the scene. The stark monochrome feels immediate, like it has been drawn live, from life. I feel for the artist here. I can imagine him wrestling to make a drawing that captures the moment without giving everything away. Perhaps he wanted to leave it open for viewers to decide what is going on. Is the prone figure injured, dead, or sleeping? How would the image change depending on our assumptions? It reminds me of Goya’s etchings ‘The Disasters of War,’ unflinching in their depiction of human suffering. Artists are constantly in dialogue with each other, across time and space, interpreting and reinterpreting the world around them through the lens of their experience. We can only guess what the artist intended, but that’s the beauty of art: its capacity to hold multiple meanings and interpretations.