Dem Weltkrieg gewidmet! c. 1923

Karl Wiener made this watercolor skull, dedicated to the World War, sometime in the first half of the twentieth century. The colors are wild, almost psychedelic, an unreal blue-green like something you might see in a dream. It’s all about the process, how the colors bleed and blend into each other, creating an image that's both terrifying and beautiful. The texture in this work is striking, especially the way the paint has settled into the paper, giving the skull a rough, almost decaying look. The red, like blood, drips down, each drop a small, violent gesture. But look closely at the eyes – those deep, swirling pools of color. It's almost as if there’s something still alive in there, some spark of humanity refusing to be extinguished. That single, unbroken line that cracks the skull open is particularly powerful. Wiener reminds me a bit of Otto Dix in his unflinching look at the horrors of war, but with an added layer of surreal, almost childlike innocence. The beauty of art lies in its ambiguity, its refusal to offer easy answers.