The Leaving Ones

Werner Berg is often referred to as the late successor to the generation of Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluf or Nolde. And precisely in a woodcut technique, one of »the most expressionist« techniques, Berg considerably differs from the German Expressionism. He only used an expressionist cutting technique in 1931, at the very beginning of his life at the Ruthof farm. Only in these woodcuts Berg followed the example of Nolde by trying a rather violent technique of tearing at the wood.

Werner never followed a nervous cut of Kirchner expressing the hectic tension of a big city as indicated in the woodcut of The Potsdam Square, because he already dedicated himself to two-dimensional record of human figure since his early years in Austrian Carinthia. Nevertheless, after the war, his early, often naive and rounded shapes give way to subtly differentiated comprehension of uniquiness which he depicted best in his picture “The Leaving Ones” wherby the contour line of a woman showing her back is reminiscent of a typical destiny.