It's All Over - The City 1947

Editor: Here we have Wols’s “It's All Over – The City” from 1947, made with mixed media, paint, and matter-painting techniques. It definitely feels chaotic, almost like looking at a ruined landscape. What do you see in this piece, considering its historical context? Curator: Well, first, the title itself speaks volumes. "It's All Over," created right after the Second World War, it's drenched in the feeling of post-war angst. The city isn’t a literal depiction, but more an evocation. Consider the tangle of dark lines, almost like exposed roots or shattered infrastructures. What emotional weight do those broken structures evoke for you? Editor: They definitely speak to a kind of collapse or disintegration, I suppose on both personal and societal levels. Is that abstraction intentional, to move away from traditional symbols? Curator: Absolutely. Abstraction becomes a powerful tool here. It allows Wols to bypass concrete imagery and tap into the raw, unarticulated emotions of a generation scarred by conflict. Look at how the blues and browns interact – does that chromatic tension hint at something? Editor: Maybe a kind of muted hope struggling against decay? The blue trying to break through the brown? Curator: Precisely! The individual dots could symbolize scattered populations or lost connections within that damaged urban space. What about the spattering technique? How does that visual element work with this general concept? Editor: It feels destructive, like the painting itself has been bombed or weathered down… Curator: Precisely! This offers potent symbolism about the ravages of time and conflict. Considering the iconographical destruction after World War Two, in many respects abstraction becomes the only viable and authentic visual language available for artists to express the horrors. The visual lexicon was insufficient. This is very informative! Editor: I see! This conversation has definitely given me a completely fresh perspective. Thank you for the new understanding.