Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: The Dresden and Berlin Years

Whenever early twentieth century European art is mentioned, everyone immediately thinks of Paris and the legendary artists, such as Picasso and Matisse, who flourished there. Relatively little attention is paid to Germany and the expressionist school that existed during this same period.  This is partly the fault of history.  As much as France celebrated its rich cultural history, so Nazi Germany sought to repress the work of its preeminent artists by labeling them degenerate and by seizing and destroying their artworks.  This reached a climax in 1937 when Hitler, who in his youth had himself been an indifferent watercolorist, ordered the infamous Entartete Kunst exhibit to be staged in Munich.  The show, now ironically considered one of the best exhibits of modern art ever shown, hung 650 artworks confiscated from German museums.  Prominently displayed at that exhibit was the work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

I was first attracted to Kirchner's work by his paintings of Berlin streetwalkers.  The angular distorted representations had about them an air of seedy eroticism that fascinated me. When I read Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: The Dresden and Berlin Years, I learned that these formed only a portion of the artist's output.  Aside from paintings of other subjects, Kirchner worked extensively with the graphic arts, including woodcuts and lithographs.  Over the course of his career, he also made a number of primitive sculptures carved roughly from wood and then painted.

Together with several other artists, Kirchner formed the expressionist school named Die Brücke in Dresden in 1905.  After moving to Berlin, the group argued over its focus and finally dissolved.  When World War I broke out, Kirchner at first enlisted but then claimed to have had a breakdown, though this episode may actually have been caused by his morphine addiction.   Throughout his life, the artist suffered from severe emotional problems that greatly curtailed his career and eventually led him to commit suicide in middle age.  He died in Switzerland without ever having truly fulfilled the promise of his youth.

The book itself is valuable for being one of the few studies available of this enigmatic artist. The oversized illustrations are excellent and provide a comprehensive overview of the most important phase of Kirchner's career.  The accompanying essays vary in quality but do provide a great deal of insight into the artist's creative processes as well as the milieu in which he worked.  The essay by Wolfgang Henze on Kirchner's sculpture is especially enlightening.  On the other hand, a discussion by Andrew Robison of Kirchner's reception in the US and UK can be of little interest to the general reader.  Also included are a chronology of the artist's life as well as two critical essays ghostwritten by Kirchner attempting an explanation of his own work.