The Cushion (Der Polster)

The cushion receives a face we cannot see

A woman folds her arms against a large cushion and lowers her head into them. Her face disappears beneath dark hair and fabric. One hand spreads towards the upper edge, while her long pale dress fills much of the image below.

Max Kurzweil’s Der Polster, translated as The Cushion, dates from 1903. It is a colour woodcut, not an oil painting. The impression reproduced here belongs to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, accession 1972.66.30.

The distinction is essential to its appearance. Broad areas of colour and decisive edges were developed for printing from carved blocks. Their restraint is part of the design, not a shortage of painted detail.

A raised hand is more exposed than the face

The spread fingers reach into the shallow space above the cushion. The arm then folds back towards the head, making a continuous angular shape. The woman’s expression is withheld, but the arrangement of her body remains emphatic.

The Leopold Museum, which holds another impression, identifies the sitter as the artist’s wife. The image can suggest fatigue, withdrawal or melancholy, yet none of these readings establishes a particular event in her life.

What can be seen is more exact: she has turned away from the viewer and placed her head against a support. The print permits an emotional response without supplying a complete psychological explanation.

The cushion and the sofa repeat flowers differently

The large cushion carries pale blossoms and branching lines. Behind it, the upholstery uses broader yellow flower heads against green. The two patterns are related by subject but separated by scale and colour.

These surfaces do more than decorate the room. Their repeated curves surround the figure’s bent arms and falling dress, letting bodily movement and furnishing meet in a field of lines.

The plants are decorative designs. It would be misleading to turn every flower into a securely identified botanical species or a fixed moral symbol. Their visible task is to build relationships between neighbouring colours and shapes.

The skirt becomes a single pale expanse

The dress spreads down the image in grey-lilac tones. A few darker contours describe folds, weight and the turn of the seated body. Much of the surface remains comparatively quiet beside the busy upholstery.

This economy makes the skirt legible at a distance. It does not need the many small tonal transitions an oil painter might use to describe fabric. The contour supplies much of the information.

Its pale mass also changes how we encounter the hidden head. Our eye can travel upward through the dress towards the compact area of dark hair, instead of being invited immediately into a face-to-face portrait.

The intimate scene required several coordinated printings

The Leopold Museum describes Kurzweil’s study of Japanese colour woodcut techniques with Emil Orlik and notes the use of five delicate colours in this design. Success depended on the relationship between cutting, inking and printing.

A coloured area does not automatically identify a single block in a digital reproduction. Nevertheless, the surviving print makes it possible to see why alignment matters: a misplaced edge would change the meeting of sleeve, hair, cushion and background.

The ALBERTINA holds a wooden printing block for Der Polster, dated 1903. That physical object connects the apparent softness of the scene with the resistant material from which the image was produced.

The design belongs to the world of Viennese Jugendstil. Here, decorative pattern is not separate from the human subject. It helps determine how near the interior feels, and how firmly the sitter can still withdraw from us.

The paper around the image belongs to this impression

The Washington record distinguishes the image, 28.7 × 25.9 centimetres, from the larger sheet, 38.7 × 31 centimetres. The pale border in the full reproduction is therefore not an empty portion of an oil canvas.

Other museums hold other impressions, with differences in sheet size, mounting and appearance. These should not be described as separate oil versions merely because their dimensions vary.

The relatively small format also matters to the encounter. The print rewards close looking at a lowered head, a spread hand and two kinds of patterned fabric. Its intimacy does not depend on making the figure monumental.

Questions about The Cushion

Is The Cushion an oil painting?

No. This work is a colour woodcut. The National Gallery of Art describes its impression as printed on Japan paper.

Who is the woman?

The Leopold Museum identifies the subject as Kurzweil’s wife.

Why is her face hidden?

Her head rests against her folded arms and cushion. The pose can suggest withdrawal or melancholy, but the image does not document a single known cause.

Where can the print be found?

Impressions are held by several museums, including the National Gallery of Art, the Leopold Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The Washington impression is reproduced here.

Sources and image credit

• National Gallery of Art: Der Polster, 1972.66.30
• Leopold Museum: another impression, sitter and five-colour technique
• ALBERTINA: the 1903 wooden printing block, HO2000/3
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: another impression and publication inscriptions

Faithful public-domain reproduction of The Cushion (Der Polster), via Wikimedia Commons. Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.