Weide XVIII 1921

Ewald Mataré made this print, Weide XVIII, with lithography. Look at this strong, reductive approach to figuration! I can imagine Mataré in the studio, making bold decisions about line and color. The black ink surrounds the figures, flattening the image and pushing the forms to the foreground. I wonder if Mataré was interested in simplifying the forms to get at the essence of the figures, distilling his subjects down to a few powerful shapes and lines? It makes me think of Franz Marc's brightly colored animals, or even some of the German Expressionist woodcuts, where the artists were trying to capture something raw and elemental. These cows are lovely and solid, but the composition pushes it towards something more abstract. It's like Mataré is having a conversation with both representation and abstraction, each informing the other. This back-and-forth is what makes art interesting, isn’t it?