WATER CARRIER

Enraptured by ordinary human occupations, Gottlieb would elevate them in his work to a symbol of human existence. The water carrier was a recurrent theme in his work, with several surviving versions of it. Frequently painted by artists of Jewish origin, including Józef Badower, Adolf Behrmann and Regina Mundlak, the motif of a man carrying buckets usually represented a picturesque and so-called Jewish occupation.

Differently from those pieces, the water carrier in Gottlieb’s painting has turned his back to the viewer; the pointed hat he is wearing bears a resemblance to those worn by harlequins and circus folk in Picasso’s paintings from the Rose Period. Also in the picture, in its foreground, is a kneeling woman drinking from a large bowl and an emaciated dog opposite her, epitomising homelessness. With their faces not visible, these figures are visually dumb, and their bodies are like torsos of mannequins. The architecture surrounding them is abstract and monumental, evoking an aura of confinement, of there being no way out especially that the scene contains no elements of natural landscape. The lyrical mood of The Water Carrier is further underscored by a nuanced palette with dominating melancholic pink, and its expressiveness reinforced by the impasto technique.