Karikaturaal gezicht

Erich Wichmann drew this caricature, likely in charcoal, on a small sheet of paper in 1923. I love how Wichmann gets right to the point with a minimum of fuss. The marks are direct, almost brutally so, and there's no attempt to pretty things up. The face emerges from a haze of smudged charcoal, a kind of primal scream rendered in grayscale. It’s just a few lines and smudges but somehow, it all adds up to something so evocative. Look at the way the charcoal bleeds into the paper, creating these soft edges that give the face a ghostly, ethereal quality. It reminds me of some of the early expressionist portraits, where the artist is trying to capture not just the likeness of a person, but also their inner turmoil. Wichmann doesn’t aim for realism; it’s all about expression, about laying bare the raw emotions that lie beneath the surface. It reminds me a little of the work of George Grosz, also working in Germany at the time. He also had a talent for capturing the grotesque.