The Dialectician 1911

Moriz Jung made this print, The Dialectician, using graphic marks and colours that are like a conversation overheard. I imagine him, maybe late at night, pen in hand, leaning over the lithographic stone, the kind of stone that talks back. What was he thinking? Maybe about the history of thought, all those heavy books on the shelf behind him. The black ink outlines everything, with flat colours locked inside: a yellow book, a green book, a red book. His subject is a thinking man being blasted by the horn of a gramophone, like the very sound will turn his brain into a library. You can feel the artist's hand in every line, every choice of colour. There’s something about the directness of the medium that makes it feel so personal, so raw. I find it helpful to think of artists in conversation with one another across time, they inspire one another's creativity. Like Moriz Jung is speaking to us today, clear as a bell.