Description

Ludwig Meidner was not formally associated with an Expressionist group, but this scene of explosive light above a deserted street encapsulates the urban anxiety conveyed in the work of many of his contemporaries. The striking patterns of black and white drawn in ink are reminiscent of the cut surfaces of a woodcut. The back (verso) of the drawing features a lively portrait of a young woman. The artist once advised that in making a portrait one should “dig like a mole down into the mysterious deep of the pupils and into the white of the eye and don’t let your pen stop until the soul of that one opposite you is welded to yours in a covenant of pathos.”