About the work
The unusually narrow picture format comprises the special charm of this painting. Colourfulness and repertoire of form are, like so often with Heinrich Siepmann, characterised by aesthetic reduction and asceticism. The actual richness of his sensitive compositions not seldom reveals itself only at second glance, but it is precisely from this that the fascination his works exert on viewers originates.
Here it is the light-yellow square in the lower third of the painting, with a horizontal axis tending to the left, that provides the compositional centre of the construction and draws attention to itself first. Slender, geometric forms in black and different shades of grey are the companions of the yellow protagonist. They develop a reserved dynamic toward the top right corner of the painting, which provides a counterpoint to the skew of the small square – an eminently successful composition in the unusual pictorial space.
