Soliciting your first impressions on what you see in a figure in a woodcut

Pom-pom scarves exist, FWIW.

As a woodcut, there are going to be breaks in whatever figures are shown. Solid blocks of color are not going to be continuous.


As for the man having one finger in the air, I thought of hand gestures of 1920s jazzy dancing like this:

I think the picture shows a celebratory dance because they just found out she’s pregnant. Also explains the XL boobs.

That’s what I thought, and I thought boobs, because the ends of them are prominent like your areolas get when you are pregnant.

Also, he’s pushing her into some bushes or shrubs. If it’s supposed to be an assault, they don’t really start that way, and it’s people thinking they do that left rapes unreported for most of the 20th c.

But, maybe the picture is supposed to be saying something about that. What drew you to it, Mops? what made you think “I want to look at this every day.”

I’m guessing you don’t know what they look like on women who have nursed a few babies.

Hey, put a warning on NSFW images like those!

Especially if she is pregnant they’ll be bigger, thus heavier and saggier.

Admittedly my sample size is very small.

I think they’re dancing in joy, his hand in a baton or possibly shaking no-no or beckoning come-mere to the song lyrics. I do think the foot placement does not intend to show one stepping on another and/or the woman stepping back/away but also that it looks that way. I’m not sure about the green block, a skirt or dress hadn’t occurred to me but it could be and, looking again, perhaps hides her pregnancy. In any case, the gauzy green with flowers and lobed triangles in the negative space suggests movement.

Also the top nipple seems to be heart shaped. Pointing upward towards the guys head.

I don’t see anything that would suggest an assault.

But the male figure isn’t.

If they both were, or neither, it wouldn’t bother me. It’s the difference that bothers me.

It’s possible that the artist means it to, of course. But I’m surprised that so many in this thread don’t appear to even notice it. Two people have even given different explanations for the disintegrated figure, neither of which works for this piece because the male figure is coherent; though I’m not the only one here who recognizes that difference.

Its not unusual when dancing for the guy to remain composed and for the woman to make the flashy moves. In my dancing days days I was told that it didn’t matter so much how I moved, that people would be looking at her. Of course roles could be reversed depending upon the music and the mood. There aren’t many rules when it comes to dancing, other than not stepping on the other person’s foot! :smiley:

I’m not seeing it. In the male figure, his head is disconnected from his body, his hand is disconnected from his wrist, his fingers are disconnected from his hand, and possibly his right leg is disconnected (twice) from his hips, so 3 to 5 disconnections. In the female figure, I see perhaps 3 disconnections, at the neck, under her arms and at the right knee, so no more and perhaps less than in the male figure. There are partial gaps under each breast but they don’t go all the way through, but even if you count them, I don’t see the figures as grossly different.

Unless you’re John Travolta.

I’m not seeing any of those as disconnections; they just look to me like they’re delineating the jawline, etc, and maybe a bracelet on the wrist. There’s no displacement of body parts. There’s no question of whether anything even is a body part. I agree those are probably breasts, but they’re not in the right place. None of the male figure’s parts, ever if we take those lines for separations, are displaced.

Yeah, there’s a definite difference in how the male and female figures are depicted. Not only is the male figure fully intact, but he also appears to be well-dressed: That looks like a jacket and tie. The woman, meanwhile, looks like she’s naked, or at least very scantily-dressed. I find it hard to believe that those differences weren’t intentional on the artist’s part, though what he means by those differences, I don’t know.

See the examples of other works by the artist and his style, there’s much disfigurement in both male and female figures. Like other people said, it’s his style, and you may overthink this particular example. I don’t see any aggression towards the female figure or any misogyny in this piece, and I usually am quite sensible for it (for a male, I have to admit).

Yes, the other examples do show both male and female figures disfigured. I’m giving my reaction to this specific piece, in which the artist chose not to do that.

ETA: I also see the difference @Chronos just mentioned. I think somebody else also pointed it out upthread.

So maybe Grieshaber happened to show the female figure in one of his many works more disfigured than the male, without any bad intention?

I think that he definitely had intention. Whether that intention was bad, I have no idea.

I already said that I don’t know what the artist’s intention is. Maybe they’re trying to make a comment on how much of society sees men and women differently. Maybe they themselves see men and women differently in that fashion. Maybe they’re thinking of some specific couple who they know. Maybe something else.

Maybe they did do it by accident, meaning nothing. I’d think less of them as an artist, if so.