Der Sämann c. 1923

Karl Wiener made this watercolour, Der Sämann, at some point during his short life. The title means ‘the sower’ in German, and the image shows a lone figure standing on a red platform addressing a crowd. It looks like a political rally, perhaps in Germany, in the years between the wars. The sower broadcasts his ideas to the crowd, whose upturned faces are marked by triangular pennants. The dramatic cone of light evokes a religious experience or perhaps the hypnotism of propaganda. Wiener’s stark images, made during a time of considerable social unrest, evoke the feeling of precarity. Wiener studied at the Reimann School in Berlin, an important center for commercial art and design. His work in general is a striking example of the Weimar era. To fully understand this art, one would need to research German social history and the artistic institutions of the time. By understanding the context, we come to see how art both reflects and shapes the world around it.