De sportploert 1923

Erich Wichmann's ‘De sportploert’ comes into being through a wash of grayscale tones, like a memory emerging from the fog. I can imagine him hunched over this small surface, coaxing form from the void. I feel for Wichmann, here, trying to nail down something so hard to grasp. He seems to be searching for the essence of a face, a mask, or maybe a feeling. The strokes around the eyes are particularly moving, trying to find the right depth, the right shadow, to convey the emotion he’s after. Think of Goya's darker prints, those moments of raw human expression captured with such directness. Wichmann seems to be in conversation with that tradition, pushing the boundaries of what a simple mark can convey. It is the way painters keep talking to one another, across time, across cultures, each adding their own voice to the chorus.