Disreputable Place, 1903/04

In his work Disreputable Place, dating from 1903/04, the draftsman, graphic artist and writer Alfred Kubin (1877–1959) uses pen and India ink to confront us with an abandoned and seemingly cursed farmstead that endures its lonely existence in a rigid winter landscape illuminated by a pale light from an icy sky, producing an impression of apparent harmlessness combined with an underlying sense of menace. The gaze of the beholder follows the grooves in the path that runs along a winding embankment accompanied by a confining wall, only to find two peculiar little buildings with facades that resemble the faces of crude figures. A bent flue pipe protrudes skywards from the smaller of the two buildings. From 1906, Kubin lived in complete seclusion with his wife Hedwig in Zwickledt Castle on a remote estate in Upper Austria. His wife’s morphine addiction is thought to have contributed to their choice of a life in self-imposed isolation. Hedwig, previously a widow of considerable means, had financed the purchase of the estate.

MH, 2021