Anxiety

The Otto Gutfreund sculpture from 1911-1913 represents European cubist sculpture at its most complex. Anxiety is the apex of his cubo-expressionist period, when Gutfreund employed great expressiveness and turned the sculpture’s exterior into edges and surfaces. He transformed a classical figural theme through a cubist distortion of forms and psychological motifs of inner drama. The woman’s lonely, drapery-shrouded figure, her form reminiscent of a rock, embodies the existentialist uncertainty that was an inherent part of the fin-de-siècle atmosphere and was linked with the artist’s personal feelings.