Mother and Child, 1903

This pencil drawing from the early oeuvre of the German-Austrian painter and graphic artist Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel (1881–1965) is characterized by powerful feelings, such as intimacy, trust and emotional security. Jungnickel, who was primarily known as an animal painter, also knew how to masterfully render human emotions, as this graphic work, created in line with Jugendstil, illustrates. The left edge of the painting shows a sitting mother in profile, with her reclining daughter nestled against her. The daughter looks to the right, beyond the depiction and away from the beholder. Owing to the strong, tectonic-looking outlines and subtly psychologizing interior details, the two figures appear like a formal entity. The composition, and thus also the line of sight, is determined by a diagonal leading from the upper left to the lower right corner. The influence exerted by the drawing style of Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) is unmistakable in this rendering.

MR, 2021