Das Dunkel c. 1923

Editor: So, here we have Karl Wiener's "Das Dunkel," likely created around 1923. It’s a watercolor, and pencil drawing on paper, and the darkness is definitely the first thing that strikes you. This lone figure, seemingly trapped in a pool of light amidst overwhelming darkness… It feels rather isolating. What do you make of it? Curator: Isolating indeed! The artist lays bare a truth – the inherent loneliness of the individual against the backdrop of…well, everything. Wiener uses the expressionistic style beautifully, turning the figure into almost a caricature. Is he dancing, Editor, or perhaps flailing? The gesture reads as both joyous and desperate, doesn’t it? Editor: It’s that ambiguity that's so captivating! Like he's trying to celebrate in the face of something ominous. Curator: Precisely! "Das Dunkel” - The Darkness. The title is so blatant, isn't it? But what *is* the darkness? Societal unrest? Existential dread? Or is it simply Wiener's way of exploring the shadows within himself, projected outwards? The deep blues, the sharp outlining... It’s all charged with emotional weight. Does the piece evoke a certain unease within you, Editor? Editor: Definitely, but also a strange sort of empathy. Knowing this was created in the interwar period, it's hard not to read it as a reflection of the anxiety of that time. Curator: Ah, the historical lens! Always illuminating. And that touch of absurdist humor--the jaunty angles--cuts through the heaviness, doesn’t it? Wiener's dark clown challenges the void and invites us to do the same. What does that say of him, do you suppose? Editor: It is, in a way, inspiring, that someone felt such a will to create through it all, and, more specifically, making this today showed how, decades later, its possible for us to be still feel connected with this need to confront and move against, well, “the darkness”. Thank you for that amazing insight. Curator: And thank *you* for pulling out the humor and inspiring fortitude, and, yes, enduring relevance in it, and revealing it all to *me.* A dark masterpiece that ultimately illuminates!