Georges Rouault (1871 - 1958)
Entant d'ordes divers, le beau metier d'ensemencer une terre hostile
(In so many different domains, the noble vocation of sowing in hostile land) 1923
Etching and aquatint on paper
Purchased in 1958

This etching is one of a series of 58 with the Latin title Miserere, "Have mercy" or "Take pity", the opening of Psalm 51.  These aquatints were conceived during and after the misery of the first World War, but not published till after the second.  In this picture Jesus Christ, shown elsewhere on the cross or resurrected, becomes the sower in his own parable, sowing on enemy ground: even a house is turned into a screaming face.  Can the word then be heard at all?  In the new edition of 1951 a personal note by Rouault is placed alongside this work: "I was like a peasant in his field, clinging to the pictured soil."  His daughter Isabelle further explains its title, that the work "allows everyone the freedom to interpret it in a much broader sense."