Chopin IV (a, b, c) Chopin IV (a, b, c), recto

Sketches for Chopin's portrait.

Weiss shows Chopin's face as a bright patch emerging from the nerwous lines and blurred surfaces of his charcoal drawing. The composer in his last painful agony and deathbed ecstasy still draws notes from his elegiac-sounding instrument. The predatory movement of hands, alternately reaching for the dark bass sounds on the left-hand side of the keyboard and shrill squealing, penetrating dissonant tones in the high notes of the scale, was suggested by the lines of blurred semicircles, as his fingers rapidly dart across the keyboard. The drawing exudes an unbridled desire to create, ignoring even illness and suffering.