Abstracte compositie 1919

Erich Wichmann made this abstract composition sometime around the early 20th century using etching techniques. It looks like controlled chaos, doesn’t it? The marks are all scratches and scribbles, a flurry of dark lines that seem to dance and dart across the surface. It's a web of textures, a kind of organized mess. Look at the lower left corner. See how those lines bunch together, almost like a dark clump of... something? It's dense and brooding, a little island of concentrated energy. This reminds me of some of Cy Twombly's looser, more frantic drawings, but with a darker edge. Both artists share a love of the spontaneous mark, but while Twombly feels romantic and expansive, Wichmann feels more like a descent, a kind of controlled explosion on the plate. Ultimately, it reminds us that art is not just about what we see, but how we feel, and the worlds we can create with a few simple marks.