Blick auf das verschneite Schwarzwalddorf Bernau 21 - 1922

Emil Rudolf Weiß made this pencil drawing, titled "View of the Snowy Black Forest Village of Bernau," in 1922. The Black Forest, in southwest Germany, is a region steeped in folklore and known for its traditional woodcraft. Weiß’s seemingly straightforward landscape needs to be understood in light of the cultural moment in which it was made. Germany, after the First World War, saw a turn away from cosmopolitanism and toward the values of the “Heimat,” or homeland. The back-to-the-land movement was tied to conservative politics, and the idealization of rural life often excluded the realities of peasant experience. Weiß, however, was associated with the German Expressionists before the war, and he continued to work as a designer in an avant-garde style. This work gives us a sense of the complex cultural crosscurrents after the war. To fully understand such images, we need to consult publications, political documents, and other records of the period.