Comparison 2: Expression Goes Dark, with Kathe Kollwitz
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Kathe Kollwitz
Die Witwe II ('The Widow II'), plate 5 of 7 from the Krieg ('War') series, 1922-1923
Print from woodcut original, full sheet approx. w65.9 cm x h47.7 cm (25.31" x 18.75")
Multiple print copies in various locations: the above from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY USA
In stark contrast to the refined mark-making typical of ink wash paintings, or the free-flowing visual movement of Van Gogh, above is a print-from-woodcut by German artist Kathe Kollwitz, working in immediate response to World War 1 (in which she herself lost a son).
Kollwitz uses monochrome ink just as in the pieces by Tohaku and Van Gogh, but the effect is extremely different: much harsher, more primal, little-to-no value nuance (that is, the ink is flat black against the paper, with no dilution to create different shades of gray). Much of this comes down to the woodcut technique, which Kollwitz chose very deliberately. Unlike drawing, painting, etching, or similarly nuanced media, woodcut almost always has a touch of severity — partly because it involves hacking away bits of wood to carve out the image (a process which tends to leave traces of little angular lines), and partly because the result is naturally high-contrast (delicate shading is extremely difficult when everything is so binary, the wood either there or not, able to hold ink or not).
Beyond that, Kollwitz is basically just a powerhouse of expressive mark-making. But unlike Van Gogh, who primarily used his marks to convey hidden (often beautiful) rhythms of visual movement, Kollwitz primarily used her marks to convey hidden (or ignored) internal worlds of grief, trauma, or madness.
If you'd like to go depress yourself, the Krieg series is available here (with commentary here), more work can be seen here, and more about Kollwitz herself is here.