Erinnerung an… 1940

Karl Wiener made this charcoal drawing of a bedroom in 1940, using a very limited tonal range. It’s a kind of intimate interior, built with soft, smudgy strokes. The physical process feels intuitive, like he’s feeling his way through the dark. There’s this quiet intensity about the work, you can almost feel the texture of the paper, the way the charcoal dust clings to the surface, creating a velvety darkness. The light of the moon filters in, illuminating the pillow. Look closely at how Wiener renders the pillow's form. It’s not about clear outlines, but the overall effect of light and shadow. It reminds me of some of Odilon Redon’s nocturnes, or maybe some of the dreamlike interiors of Vilhelm Hammershøi, but in the end this piece stands alone in its stark simplicity and emotional directness. Art's not about answers, it's about that space between things, the unresolved, the ambiguous.