1588
ink
paper
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Ixion is a 1588 ink by Hendrik Goltzius, a Renaissance work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This engraving shows a swirling scene of a man tangled in stormy clouds. His arms stretch upward, fingers clawing at the air, while his legs kick wildly. Below him, a dark, chaotic landscape unfolds with jagged rocks and a faint outline of a shipwreck. The lines are sharp and busy, creating a sense of movement and struggle. The artist used tiny parallel lines to build up shadows and texture—this is called cross-hatching. It makes the scene feel dense and dramatic, like the chaos inside the man’s mind. Next, check out how cross-hatching works in other prints.
Hendrick Goltzius (German: , Dutch: ; né Goltz; January or February 1558 – 1 January 1617) was a German-born Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter.
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