Sketch for the Painting “The Hiker”, c. 1914

As for his painting Venus in the Grotto, Koloman Moser (1868–1918) also created several versions for his work known as The Hiker. The artist used the theme of hiking as a pretext for filling the pictorial plane with a naked male figure with its upper and lower extremities in a profile view. The pink tree trunks with bluish margins and dapples, the ground inclined upwards and the arched sky all serve to frame the figure. But, as with his Venus depiction, the painting is not reduced to the planar design. With the painting of the figure deliberately different in structure to that of the surroundings, and the bands of color along its outlines, the figure stands out from the space around it. With this at once planar and three-dimensional composition, which can be found in this and similar paintings, Moser managed to create highly multi-layered works.

Text Leopold Museum