Abend im Garten c. 1925

Karl Wiener made Abend im Garten with ink and watercolour, and you can see how the process mattered as much as the subject. The marks are restless, agitated, but also precise, building up to a vision of something between folk art and German Expressionism. There's a beautiful tension in the way he renders the garden, full of nervous energy, all done with this cross-hatching technique. See how he uses tiny strokes of blue and green to create depth and texture? Everything is alive, even the sky seems to be breathing. Then, that lone sunflower! Wiener draws this almost cartoonishly large flower in the foreground, and it feels like he’s poking fun at the idea of landscape painting. Wiener seems to nod to artists like Van Gogh or even Munch, who wrestled with their inner demons, but there’s also a sense of humor. This is art that doesn’t take itself too seriously, inviting us to find beauty in the everyday, even when it's a little bit weird.