DOROTHEA LANGE’S “MIGRANT MOTHER” AND JEAN-BAPTISTE CARPEAUX’S “UGOLINO AND HIS SONS”

The greater context of each of these pieces is extremely different from one another. In the case of “Ugolino,” his hunger is punishment for a life full of greed for power, and his hunger appears to be paramount over that of his children. In the case of the “Migrant Mother “we know that she is the victim of a desperate moment in history and we assume that the hunger of her children is more important.

These two pieces are strikingly similar, however. As moments frozen in time, in the way that only sculpture and photography can manage, there is a calm exterior. But on the inside, we see the focus and fixation that churns in a frenzied mind, searching for some calculation that will alleviate the most urgent human problem.

Hunger as a subject matter for art is deeply unsettling, especially for anyone who has experienced periods of real scarcity. This week’s drawing is my recreation of a beautiful Kathe Kollwitz print that I find particularly horrifying.