Building site of I. G. Farben 1928

Pauline Kowarzik made this drawing of the I. G. Farben building site with soft pastel. It’s so immediate, like she just set up her easel and recorded the scene as it unfolded. There’s a real rawness in the marks, a kind of scratching with the side of the pastel, especially in the way the bare trees are rendered. Those trees create a screen, a kind of filter, through which we see the distant construction. They echo the scaffolding and cranes, blurring the distinction between nature and industry, organic and constructed. My eye keeps going to the small figures perched high up, balancing in the bare branches. They seem so vulnerable. It’s such a human scene, but the odd perspective flattens everything, emphasizing the texture of the paper and the layering of color. It makes me think of Paula Modersohn-Becker, another artist who found beauty in everyday life. Art is never really finished, it’s an ongoing conversation.