Verrückter Sonnenuntergang c. 1921

Karl Wiener made “Verrückter Sonnenuntergang” – or “Crazy Sunset” – with watercolor and ink on paper, and the effect is pretty wild. I love the way he’s got this rainbow of colors arching through the sky, almost like the sky is made of stripes. It’s so flat, but somehow still feels like a landscape. The green fields are hatched with dense, scribbly lines, and then you’ve got these colorful blocks below, like someone took crayons to a Mondrian. Notice how the trees are just perfect green spheres, with the same hatching as the fields? There’s something playful about the whole thing. Those vertical lines in the foreground, how they alternate in color and texture, remind me a bit of Paul Klee’s “magic squares.” But Wiener’s got a raw, almost childlike energy that’s all his own, and in that way, I think he’s inviting us to see the world with fresh eyes, like a kid with a box of crayons, totally unafraid to make a mess.