1874
ink
paper
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Death and the Woodcutter is a 1874 ink by Alphonse Legros, a Romanticism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This sketch shows a hunched figure with a scythe, standing over a fallen woodcutter. The trees around them are drawn with tangled, crisscrossed lines. The paper looks rough, almost like bark, and the ink is smudged in places. The artist used lots of overlapping lines to show shadows and texture—this is called *cross-hatching*. It makes the scene feel rough and uneven, like a quick, urgent sketch. Look up cross-hatching to see how artists use lines to create depth.
Alphonse Legros (French pronunciation: ; 8 May 1837 – 8 December 1911) was a French, later British, painter, etcher, sculptor, and medallist.
See the richer artist page![Witchcraft Scene with a Vampire [recto]](https://pub-3a17a9933ad74fb28aa30fa758592f23.r2.dev/artworks/a791adbd7e97db30/thumb.webp)
