Komposition aus ‘Pflaster und Wiese’ I 1924

Karl Wiener made this raw little watercolor, 'Komposition aus ‘Pflaster und Wiese’ I,' around the middle of the twentieth century, and it feels like a window into his world, doesn’t it? I imagine him hunched over a table, lost in the act of mark-making, building up these layers of color and line. The buildings are so present, they are solid and a bit ominous. Then there's the smoke above, heavy and dark. You can feel the weight of it, not just as pollution but as something psychologically dense. Look how Wiener uses these repeated marks—like the horizontal lines in the sky—to create depth and texture. It's almost like he’s building the painting up from the ground. He's grappling with the weight of the world but doing it through the simple act of putting marks on paper. It's a conversation, you know? Artists talking to each other, across time, through the language of paint.