On the Terrace 1911

Moriz Jung made this print called On the Terrace; it’s a kind of social critique done with color and line. The color palette here is really amazing and unsettling, all browns and greens and a kind of sickly yellow. Jung is playing with some contrasts here. The guy on the left is in tatters and drinking; next to him is a man in a suit looking anxious; behind him, another guy in a suit looks straight out at us. There’s something performative in the way Jung uses the graphic medium. The color is laid down flatly, like stencils. But then he also adds these incredibly delicate and expressive lines. The lines are so much about the specifics of the people: the bare feet of the drunk, the uptight, wired face of the man in the suit. It reminds me a little of George Grosz and the New Objectivity painters, but with a folksier touch. What Jung is doing here is a kind of social commentary but it’s done with humor and a real eye for the individual. You can feel Jung's concern for humanity through the marks he makes.