Das nie gelesene Buch c. 1923

Karl Wiener made "Das nie gelesene Buch" using watercolor and ink. I love the way the colour seeps into the paper. It's like watching a shy person slowly open up. I imagine Karl, hunched over his table, dipping his pen, and thinking about how much we project onto books, onto the promise of stories. He probably felt the pressure to perform, to create something profound. Maybe he was thinking of his painterly peers, like Paul Klee, with their own dreamlike imagery. The parallel hatching is so careful, so deliberate, it makes me think of a kind of melancholic industry. The blue washes of background feel watery and kind of sad, like he's looking at the books through a veil of tears. But he’s captured something essential here – the silent, unread potential that rests within these pages. It feels like a secret pact between artists, a shared understanding of the beautiful struggle to create, to communicate, to connect.