Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Die Straße

One of the most important turning points in Art History is certainly the one that, in the first twenty years of the 20th century, saw a subjective way so exaggerated that it was often labeled as Expressionism, opposing the objective view of the world and things that Impressionism had imposed since the second half of the 19th century. Nevertheless, saying that this movement can be culturally inserted into the post-impressionist workshop is an overstatement because if, on one hand, almost all the exponents of the movement were influenced by post-impressionists like Gauguin, and the artist I am going to talk about admitted to having always loved Polynesian-based art in particular, or Van Gogh, the history, the chronicle, the sources of material inspiration for Expressionism were so primitive that the school must be placed in an important, stand-alone position in the artistic universe.

Avant-garde against everything and everyone: the criticisms that "Der Sturm", the magazine that officially represented German Expressionism in the '10s-'20s, directed at movements like the Modernists or the expressions of Art Nouveau, which were guilty of giving too much space to frivolities of custom, but also made clear distinctions with the past, represented by the explosion of Impressionism. The weight of history and place, Germany before the Great War and then between the two world wars, inevitably loomed menacingly, with its load of contradictions, political and social, and with the civil and class distortions, on the consciousness of the people who gave life to this formidable artistic modus vivendi: seeing it then "rejected" in the works. 

Geographically remaining between the Rhine, Danube, and Vistula, Expressionism had, while sharing formal characteristics such as the use of aggressive tones, colors on the verge of the aberrant, sketching with decisive but non-continuous lines and a rejection of the laws of perspective, two distinct entities: "Die Brücke", which interests me most in this review, figurative and decadent and "Der Blaue Reiter", which I will discuss more deeply another time, abstract and spiritualistic.

"Die Brücke" was founded in Dresden in 1905 and in its decade of life moved from the violent urban adventures, of its beginnings, to a more intimate dimension made of portraits, especially nudes, at sunset but always remaining within the stylistic canons described above, with an additional tendency for violent and primitive chromatic impulses. The name of the movement, "The Bridge", indicated a manifesto of transition between the passage from an outdated artistic form, represented by 19th-century Germany, to a new and avant-garde one, Expressionism indeed. Contrary to what is read in many treatises, the true philosophical influence that Nietzsche had on the movement, beyond the choice of name, is uncertain.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was the founder and, probably, the major interpreter of the movement: his troubled existence, suspended between politics, his works being labeled as degenerate by Nazism causing a strong mental shock in the painter, psychic discomfort, also due to drug abuse, and borderline behavior would deserve a review on its own, but due to space limitations, I will just refer you to the link I will provide attached to the writing. However, it is important to note that Kirchner achieved his greatest artistic results during his stay in Berlin in the early '10s when "Die Brücke" was collapsing or even already was, partly due to the founder himself. In those years, his favorite subjects were street scenes captured in the confusion and delirium, both mundane and "suburban", of the great metropolis: elegant gentlemen and prostitutes were captured in quick flashes that exalted the violent and convulsive movement of that life, only apparently "light." The expressionistic drive of the painter is at its peak here, but it's impossible not to notice a certain indulgence, even if in tones of reproval, sensual and erotic.

From 1913, an oil on canvas now at the MoMA in New York, is this "Die Straße": elegant men and ladies dressed in Parisian fashion stroll along Friedrichstraße, the shapes are pointed, the faces caught in the act of seeking enjoyment but aware that this frivolous life is useless and destined for a quick end. The colors and frantic tones are in deliberate contrast with each other, and the perspective is distorted to enhance the dramatic sense of inevitable decline: Kirchner considered the great metropolises as examples of aberrant civilization and those who lived there as mere weathervanes destined to sink in the imminent storms, here this view is clear. Ruthless and striking.

Between '12 and '14, the complex and far-seeing German painter composed various works of the same type and on the same wavelength: I invite everyone to delve deeper, disturbing parallels with eras we know better might arise.