Monday, February 8, 2016

Kirchner's Street Scenes

I am not fond of paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), as I've mentioned here. Biographical information on Kirchner is here for greater context.

That said, his works that interest me the most are street scenes he painted about 1913-15. New York's Museum of Modern Art had a show in 2012 dealing with those. More about that here.

Many images of Kirchner's street paintings are below. I find it interesting that V-shaped compositions are common.

Gallery

Berlin Street Scene - 1913

Five Women at the Street - 1913

Frauen auf der Strasse - 1915

Friedrichstrasse, Berlin - 1914

Leipziger Straße mit elektrischer Bahn - 1914

Potsdammer Platz - 1914

Rote Kokotte - 1914

Strasse, Berlin - 1913

Street Scene - 1913

Zwei Frauen auf der Strasse

Zwei Kokotten - 1914
This seems to be a study for the painting immediately above it.

Street scene - 1926
Kirchner occasionally did street scenes later in his career, but in a different style.

1 comment:

Hels said...

I actually enjoy Kirchner and will be discussing the Expressionists this semester in a fair amount of detail. But I must admit that the street scenes he painted just before the war and in the first years of the war were a bit strange. The brilliant colours were exciting but the large and distorted forms were a tad monstrous. I am assuming he found city life to be disturbing, or he was seriously depressed, or both.

You might find the "Twilight Over Berlin" Exhibition of German art 1905-1945 to be interesting. Thanks for the link

Hels
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