He-Goat, Smoking. Design for a Secession poster, 1910

This color woodcut by the painter and graphic artist Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel (1881–1965) was a draft for a Secession poster created in 1910. The printing technique of color woodcuts, for which wooden printing blocks are used, experienced a veritable renaissance especially in Vienna in the early 20th century. Artists like Jungnickel advanced the technique in keeping with beautiful lines, decorativeness as well as a heightened expressiveness, as in the case of this work. The motif of this woodcut is an elegantly dressed he-goat, sitting on a bench in an eccentric pose and enjoying a cigarette. This strange figure’s affected pose and elongation, especially, provides humorist undertones, perhaps referring to a certain type of person Jungnickel wanted to caricature. The work on paper makes do with a minimum of colors, and impresses, above all, with the zig-zag motif dominating the pictorial space.

MR, 2021