KIRCHNER, Ernst Ludwig, Featured Paintings in Detail (1)

KIRCHNER, Ernst Ludwig
Featured Paintings in Detail
(1)
(Street Scenes)

Street, Berlin
1913
Oil on canvas, 120.6 x 91.1 cm
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Street, Berlin (detail)
1913
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Potsdamer Platz
1914
Oil on canvas, 200 x 150 cm
Neue Nationalgalerie,Berlin

Potsdamer Platz (detail)
1914
Neue Nationalgalerie,Berlin

Berlin Street Scene
1913
Private collection

Berlin Street Scene (detail)
1913
Private collection

Five Women At The Street
1913
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Five Women At The Street (detail)
1913
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Two Women on the Street
1914
Oil on canvas, 120.5 x 91 cm
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-
Westfalen, Dusseldorf

Two Women on the Street (detail)
1914
Oil on canvas, 120.5 x 91 cm
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-
Westfalen, Dusseldorf

Street With Red Streetwalker
1913
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Street With Red Streetwalker (detail)
1913
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Women on the Street (Frauen auf
der Straße)
1915
Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal

Women on the Street (Frauen auf
der Straße) (detail)
1915
Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal

Street Scene
1914
Oil on canvas, 126 cmx 91 cm
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Street Scene (detail)
1914
Oil on canvas, 126 cmx 91 cm
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

KIRCHNER, Ernst Ludwig, Featured Paintings in
Detail (1)
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Street Scenes
The Street Scenes is considered not only the high point of Kirchner’s career, but also a milestone
in German Expressionism. Earlier, as a member of the Brücke (Bridge) artists’ group, Kirchner
rejected traditional art as it was taught in the academy, seeking instead a more natural and
spontaneous freedom of expression.
In autumn 1911, Kirchner, like the rest of the members of Die Brücke, moved from Dresden to
Berlin in pursuit of new stimuli. Since 1908 what was then the capital of the empire had been home
to Otto Müller, a member of the group from 1910, and Max Pechstein, who had settled there after
returning from Italy in 1908.
The world of the seething metropolis fascinated Kirchner and his painting underwent a
transformation in both subject matter and style. During the months leading up to the Great War,
following the breakup of the Die Brücke group in 1913 — “one of the most solitary periods of my
life, ” as he himself described it — Kirchner painted numerous Strassenszenen, street scenes
which earned him deserved recognition as an Expressionist painter of the city.
The artist wandered around the capital making quick sketches of the hasty passers-by and the
many social outcasts who lived in old Berlin. He was particularly fascinated by circus artistes,
cabaret dancers and prostitutes, whose existence on the fringes of society belonged, in
Nietzschian terms, to the same world as the visual arts.

Street Scene
1914
“Street Scene” . It too contains the now familiar motif of two women wearing hats matching each others’ outfits: in this instance, the dusty turquoise with royal blue hat paired
with her companion’s royal blue coat with turquoise cap. And again, they stand so close, belly to belly, with one elegant leg apiece stretched out in front, one tucked behind, so
that they might even be mistaken for one person.

Street, Berlin
1913
“Street, Berlin” has a very different color scheme from the others. The purple dress, flamingo pink street and turquoise background are oddly fresh, if still slightly unnatural,
shades. The women’s smirking bubblegum pink faces are turned in conspiratorially toward each other’s again. A man is in the foreground with and the same size as the hookers
for once, and though he leans away with his whole body, looking down and away, his sneaky cane projects from his general crotch area and practically touches the woman on the
right. The fleshy path they all stand on parts in a cleft between the two figures and is emphasized with an outline of deeper red. The prostitute in purple’s plunging plum coat with
the fur lining, not to mention her hand which simultaneously conceals and draws attention to her own groin further drives the sexual context of this painting home.

Potsdamer Platz
1914
“Potsdamer Platz” (Square) has a color scheme I love: the chili pepper-red train station dominates the upper register while avacado/lime green streets slice through the lower half
of the painting, somehow making even the round island the prostitutes stand on appear pointed. The green seems to be literally reflected in the faces of the women as they stand
on their perch (anther bird illusion?), with a healthy smattering of murky beige to soften the total effect of the scene… slightly.
The woman on the left is ensconced in severe black, with a flat black hat that was not a popular style (fashion historians, correct me if I’m wrong) at the time; in fact, it more
closely resembles hats of the 1940s, another war period. The broad hat becomes a platform from which to drape the oddly straight veil, whose evenly spaced vertical folds create
quite a birdcage (that old theme again!) around her head, an effect punctuated by the white plumage atop it all. This ensemble approximates mourning clothes — the white of the
hat feathers and the collar would have been inappropriate for true mourning-wear, but I liked Galia’s hypothesis that the prostitute was possibly attempting to elicit sympathy
(and clients?!) from this odd costume choice. This, after all, was the first year of WWI and there were increasing numbers of pitiable widows on the streets as husbands, brothers
and fathers were killed.
The two elongated streetwalkers appear (ironically) stationary as they are surrounded by briskly striding men in black. As with other Kirchner street scenes, the women fill the the
frame from top to bottom, this time literally dwarfing the insignificant men portrayed in distorted perspective, 1/3 their size. Interesting that the monumental women seem to be
stagnating in a world of men with places to go, trains to catch, etc.

Berlin Street Scene
1913
“Berlin Street Scene” has a wider array of colors than many other of Kirchner’s street scenes. There are actually visible men in this one, but they are all made rather anonymous by their
unvarying blue-black coats and high bowlers. By contrast, the two women become the focus by color alone; though they are half hidden by the two men, the woman in scarlet and her
companion in bright blue pop out. The woman-as-bird theme continues with the feathered hats, but this is a male perspective, I think. What’s more telling about the closeness of the
women’s relationship is that their hats match their companion’s coats and not their own. This unifies them chromatically and implies their connection within the sea of dusky men, though
they look away from each other. As I went through the show, I realized that this was a favorite visual trick of Kirchner’s.

Five Women At The Street
1913
“Five Women in the Street” was the first in Kirchner’s street series, and depicts the ladies of the night as birds of paradise (or perhaps a more domestic parrot), posing in their green
habitat with green-tinged millinery plumage and greenish skin. The bird comparison is further emphasized by the bulky fur lapels that puff the chest area up, and the hobble skirts —
both of which were popular fashions in the 19-teens — that coincidentally create bird-like, tapered legs and emphasize pointy feet.
The women peer into what can be assumed to be a storefront on our right (the dark hash marks presumably the glass reflection) window shopping, while it may be inferred that the
car sidling close on the left contains a man cruising through his own glass at the bodily merchandise they are displaying and hocking.

Two Women on the Street
1914
“Two Women in the Street” distinguishes itself from the rest of the series in several ways. First, it’s a close up, showing only the torsos of the women (who again, dominate the frame).
Second, their faces are abstracted and flattened with unnatural striations resembling wood grain in an (uncredited — apparently Kirchner rejected any suggestion that his work was
influenced by anything!) homage to the African art that was flooding Europe at that time; Picasso was similarly inspired in the early stages of his career. Even with this truncated view,
the women are unified by their identical postures. And again, the woman in the tangerine coat wears a hat the color of her companion’s peacock turquoise coat; their matching lemon
yellow collars unify them with pose and color.

Women on the Street (Frauen auf der Straße)
1915
“Women in the Street” has startling chartreuse background with dark forest green dress and deep blue dress worn by the familiar prostitutes, framed centrally again. A rather
effeminate man stands to the right, almost blending with the women, but his trousers peeking from beneath his coat and his bowler hat reveals his true sex. He looks demurely
down in the direction of the woman in green’s feet while she and her companion stare boldly at us, upsetting traditional viewing gender rules, while calling attention to the viewer’s
own participation in the voyeuristic game.

Street With Red Streetwalker
According to the inscription on the reverse, Strasse mit roter Kokotte was painted in Berlin in 1914. The central part of the composition is dominated by the figure of the whore
dressed strikingly in red, turned into a symbol that is both bourgeois and anti-bourgeois. Standing at a street corner, she attracts the attention of several male passers-by
depicted in the same scene.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a driving force in the Die Brücke group that flourished in Dresden and
Berlin before World War I, and he has come to be seen as one of the most talented and influential
of Germany's Expressionists. Motivated by the same anxieties that gripped the movement as a
whole - fears about humanity's place in the modern world, its lost feelings of spirituality and
authenticity - Kirchner had conflicting attitudes to the past and present.
An admirer of Albrecht Dürer, he revived the old art of woodblock printing, and saw himself in the
German tradition, yet he rejected academic styles and was inspired by the modern city.
After the war, illness drove him to settle in Davos, Switzerland, where he painted many landscapes,
and, ultimately, he found himself ostracized from mainstream German art. When the Nazis rose to
power in the early 1930s he was also a victim of their campaign against "Degenerate Art."
Depressed and ill, he eventually committed suicide.

KIRCHNER, Ernst Ludwig, Featured Paintings in Detail (1)

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KIRCHNER, Ernst Ludwig, Featured Paintings in Detail (1)