Black Carriage, c. 1928

A horse-drawn carriage is moving directly towards the beholder between the facade of a house and an avenue of trees. The black horses and coachman dressed in black evoke a funeral coach in the shadows of the trees. The motif, as well as the reduction to only few colors, generate a sense of oppressive gloom. In the 1920s, the painter Wilhelm Thöny (1888–1949) was staying in his birthplace of Graz. Owing to his experiences as a war painter on the frontlines during World War I and his sensitivity to the worrying events taking place over the ensuing years, he developed a proclivity for gloomy scenes. The watery-airy application of watercolors evokes a mixture of gravity and lightness which, in the face of the symbolic presence of death, produces an inner, psychological impact.

AK, 2021