Paar mit Katze im Dschungel (Couple with Cat in the Jungle) 1920

Editor: So this is "Couple with Cat in the Jungle," a 1920 woodcut by Josef Eberz. It feels…claustrophobic, almost aggressively so, with the density of the jungle pressing in around the figures. What leaps out at you when you look at this work? Curator: Claustrophobic is a great word! I feel it too. Look how Eberz has wrestled the natural world, especially that foliage, into almost brutal, angular shapes. The whole image breathes Expressionism. What's remarkable, though, is how these rigid forms still hint at a vulnerable intimacy, don't you think? I see it in the couple's stylized poses – a certain tenseness, mirrored perhaps by the alert cat. Are they comfortable or trapped in paradise, I wonder? Editor: Trapped in paradise! I like that. It's not exactly the Gauguin ideal of Tahiti. There’s this starkness to the figures, especially their faces...almost mask-like. Curator: Exactly! That stylized element pushes us away a bit. Think about what Expressionism was doing at this time. It wasn’t just about depicting a scene, it was about rendering an interior emotional landscape. Eberz seems to be probing at something deeper. Perhaps about how relationships can be both a refuge and a cage, where primal instincts are close to the surface. Notice how he contrasts dark, almost gothic-like blocks of ink with smaller and repeated areas. Why? Editor: Maybe that tension is exactly the point. It’s not a simple celebration of nature, but something much more…complicated? Curator: Complicated, conflicted…human. It’s easy to get lost in the starkness of the technique but when you sit with the work you begin to intuit the rich ambiguity inherent in the relationships that we crave. I suppose I see that cat sitting in me. Editor: That tension definitely makes it more thought-provoking, for sure. It's been helpful to delve into the feeling and expression here versus getting caught up in just the scenery itself. Curator: Precisely, sometimes beauty lies beneath a scratch or two, eh? I leave seeing relationships quite differently today!