Kritiek 1923

Erich Wichmann made this small, brooding lithograph, sometime in the early 1920s. It's all greyscale. The dark tones build up to render the slightly asymmetrical face. Imagine him, in the studio, drawing directly onto the lithographic stone. The artist’s hand is evident in the sweeping strokes that define the contours of the face, with particular care given to the rendering of the eyes, heavy-lidded and downturned. There’s a vulnerability here. The title 'Kritiek' – 'Critique' in English – is a powerful word. Wichmann seems to say something about the nature of judgement itself. I see echoes of Munch and Ensor, artists who were also plumbing the depths of the psyche, searching for ways to make visible states of emotional intensity. Artists are always in conversation, you know, riffing off one another, even across generations. Each mark is a thought, a feeling, a tiny piece of the artist’s soul laid bare. And we, as viewers, get to participate in that exchange.