Barrére Wind Orchestra 1928

Max Weber made this image of the Barrére Wind Orchestra with lithographic crayon. The marks feel so immediate, like he's right there in the room, rapidly sketching the scene. Look at how he renders the background with these swirling, almost chaotic marks. It's like the sound itself is visible, vibrating in the air. And then, the figures – they're solid but also dissolving into this sea of marks. It’s as if Weber is less interested in capturing their likeness and more invested in expressing the energy of their performance. For me, this piece is about capturing a moment in time, a fleeting experience. I think of Picasso and Braque, how they were similarly breaking down form and space around the same time. But here, the focus is not on deconstructing reality but more on capturing the ephemeral nature of a musical performance, a moment that exists only in the present and then vanishes.