Karikatuur van een journaliste 1923

Erich Wichmann’s caricature of a journalist, created in 1923, presents us with a face stripped bare, a raw expression of anguish or perhaps shock rendered in stark lines. The open mouth, a void from which words should flow, becomes instead a symbol of speechlessness or outcry. Consider the mask. Throughout history, masks have served to amplify emotions, to channel the wearer into a state of heightened expression. From ancient Greek theatre to tribal rituals, the mask is a vessel for emotional release and psychological transformation. Here, Wichmann’s subject resembles a grotesque mask. The eyes, devoid of pupils, stare blankly, suggesting a loss of perception or perhaps an overwhelming confrontation with a terrible truth. This motif echoes in Munch’s “The Scream,” where the figure’s face is similarly contorted, and the open mouth becomes a symbol of existential dread. The journalist’s face becomes a potent symbol of our shared human experience. The image reminds us that these symbols do not progress in a linear fashion but are constantly revisited, reinterpreted, and reborn across the ages.