Tea Leaf Reading c. 1938

This is Joseph Vogel's print, Tea Leaf Reading, but when, where, and with what materials it was made, I'm not sure. The work uses hard, angular lines and shapes to portray figures that are almost mannequin-like. What was Vogel thinking when he decided to remove the softness and vulnerability we associate with the human form? Was he commenting on the commodification of spirituality and the occult? I keep thinking about the figures on the margins, the almost ghostly attendants surrounding the central tea leaf reader, and how Vogel’s use of black and white heightens the contrast between the known and unknown. The figures seem to be emerging from the darkness, caught in the in-betweenness of divination. I wonder if Vogel knew Käthe Kollwitz, or maybe he found inspiration in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's woodcuts, but however he came to this, he gives us his own view of human nature: anxious, and in search of something.