Emanuel Josef Margold
Ex Libris for Josef Pecsi
circa 1911
By clearly placing Josef Pecsi’s name at the top of this piece, Margold cleverly implies that it is like the ‘sun’ to which the strange unfurling plant underneath is slowly growing. One’s eye is thus naturally drawn upwards with the plant itself, this being a visual tool which gives movement to a supposedly stationary, two-dimensional illustration. The artist also squeezes the plant into a long and lengthened rectangle - again, a technique used to fool the eye into believing that whatever is inside the space is limited and cramped, and is forced to spread out either upwards or downwards (again drawing the eye towards the intended point). This forms a pleasant ‘conversation’ between the illustration’s elements, fluidly connecting them in a kind of circular, loop-the-loop script which instantly communicates to us, the audience, the misleading idea that the illustration is simple and uncomplicated. But in fact, the design was carefully planned and executed, with its overall message of simplicity being exactly what Margold intended the viewer to believe in.
