Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

The German expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) sought to give form to subjective impressions through vehement renderings of nature, tempered by an emphasis on compositional structure that constantly increased in significance as he matured.

Born on May 6, 1880, in Aschaffenburg, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner spent most of his childhood in Chemnitz. Following his parents' wishes, he began to study architecture in 1901 at the Dresden Technical High School, but much of his attention was given to painting symbolistic Jugendstil works. In Munich in 1903-1904 to continue his architectural studies, he familiarized himself with paintings by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt. A major influence on Kirchner was the neo-impressionist exhibition of 1904.

Founding of the Brücke

On his return to Dresden, Kirchner met Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, who were also painters studying architecture. After Kirchner received his diploma in architecture in 1905, the four artists set up a common studio and organized themselves as the Brücke (bridge). Intellectually greatly influenced by Nietzsche, they considered themselves an artistic, bohemian elite having as their mission the salvation of German art. In the Brücke program Kirchner wrote: "With faith in the future, in a generation of creators as well as supporters, we call all youth together. And as the youth carrying the future, we shall gain elbow room and breathing space in opposition to the stale, old powers. Whoever immediately and truthfully reproduces his own drive to creation belongs to us." Working closely together, the painters evolved a common style dependent on neo-impressionism, Vincent Van Gogh, and Edvard Munch. Since 1904 Kirchner had been creating woodcuts inspired by Félix Vallotton and the German Renaissance artists, and his colleagues adopted the technique; Kirchner, in turn, learned wood carving and lithography from them.

Early Style

Before disbanding in 1913, the Brücke had been joined by Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, Otto Mueller, Cuno Amiet, and Kees van Dongen. Van Dongen provided a significant contact with the French Fauve painters, who had a similar interest in effects of immediate expression. The changes Kirchner's painting style underwent as he came to terms with non-Western art served to divorce his work from the other Brücke painters as he attained a personal style after he moved to Berlin in 1911. While Indian Buddhist painting and African sculpture became the two major sources of his new vocabulary of nervous, jagged forms, the streets of Berlin and the fashionable life of the city became a new motif, joining earlier themes of landscapes, portraits, nudes, and dancers.

Kirchner enlisted in the army when war broke out in 1914, but military training soon resulted in a nervous breakdown. Released from service, he entered a sanatorium in Königstein am Taunus, for which he painted a series of murals (destroyed) and where he created his woodcut series Peter Schlemihl (1916). To continue the cure from his alcohol-and narcotic-induced crisis, Kirchner moved to Davos, Switzerland, in 1917 and turned to the Swiss Alps and themes of peasant life for his paintings and prints. Except for brief trips, he never returned to Germany.

Mature Style

The experience of the Alpine landscape again resulted in a change in Kirchner's style. He continued his goal of expressing emotion and experience through simplified forms and clear colors, but the mechanics of pictorial structure, design, and control also took on added significance. In his views of mountain valleys and Alpine villages, color is applied in flattened, sharply delineated forms as superimposed planes lend a sense of space, combining into what Kirchner termed "hieroglyphs" intended to signify man's inner image of visible reality. The new formal emphasis led to increasingly abstract effects as Kirchner also turned to painting from the imagination rather than from nature. Works by Pablo Picasso provided another stimulus for ornamental paintings, in which Kirchner combines front and side views of objects formed by rhythmic arabesque lines and abstract color planes.

As his works were branded degenerate in Nazi Germany, Kirchner's nervous condition and loneliness returned. He committed suicide on July 15, 1938, at a time when his style seemed once again to be changing.

Further Reading

Donald E. Gordon collected vast amounts of documentary material and corrected inaccurate datings in his monograph Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1968). The prints are cataloged in Annemarie Dube-Heyning, Kirchner: His Graphic Art (1966). □

Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig (1880–1938). German Expressionist painter, printmaker, and sculptor, the dominant figure in the Brücke group. He was born in Aschaffenburg, the son of a distinguished chemist in the paper industry, and moved around a good deal in his early years because of his father's career before settling at Chemnitz in 1890. From childhood he was nervous and highly imaginative, often disturbed by nightmares. His father opposed his wish to be a painter, so from 1901 to 1905 he studied architecture in Dresden (though with an interlude in Munich in the winter of 1903–4 when he combined his architectural studies with classes in painting—the only tuition he received in the subject). A few weeks before he graduated in July 1905 he founded Die Brücke with a number of other students in Dresden. Like the other members of the group, he was influenced by Post-Impressionism, particularly Gauguin and van Gogh, by Fauvism, and by Munch. He also claimed that he was the first of the group to appreciate Polynesian and other primitive art (which he saw in the Zwinger Museum in Dresden), but this had little obvious effect on his work. His paintings consisted mainly of figure compositions, including portraits and nudes (he often spent the summer months in seclusion in the country or on the coast, where he could draw and paint nude models in natural movement). There is often an explicit erotic quality in his work and sometimes a feeling of malevolence. His forms are typically harsh and jagged, and his colours dissonant. From 1910 he began to spend much of his time in Berlin and he settled there in 1911. During the next few years his work developed more independently of the other members of Die Brücke, and his criticisms of his associates were an important factor in the the break-up of the group in 1913. His most celebrated paintings of this period are a series of street scenes of Berlin that are regarded as marking one of the highpoints of Expressionism. In a style that had become more spiky and aggressive, he depicted the pace, the glare, and the tension of big city life (Street, Berlin, MOMA, New York, 1913).

Kirchner was drafted into the German army in 1915, but he was soon discharged after a mental and physical collapse. He was treated at a sanatorium in Konigstein, near Frankfurt, and painted several murals for the hospital. In 1916 he was hit by a car in Berlin and during his long period of recuperation he settled in Frauenkirch, near Davos, in Switzerland, which became his home for the rest of his life. By 1921 he had recovered from heavy dependence on drugs, but he never fully regained mental equilibrium. When he started painting again he concentrated on mountain landscapes and peasant scenes, his work gaining in serenity what it lost in vigour. He planned to found a progressive artists' community in Switzerland, and although his idea came to nothing, many young artists sought him out for guidance, for his work had become very well known and he was regarded with awe by some admirers (Kirchner himself—for all his problems—remained unshaken in his belief that he was the greatest German artist of his age). From the late 1920s his style began to move towards abstraction, as he painted less directly from nature. Many exhibitions of his work were held in the 1930s, in Germany and elsewhere, but in the middle of the decade he was overcome again by mental anxiety and physical deterioration. The inclusion of his work in the Nazi exhibition of Degenerate Art in 1937 caused him acute distress and the following year he shot himself.

Throughout Kirchner's career, printmaking was as important to him as painting and he ranks as one of the 20th century's greatest masters in this field. He produced a huge body of work in woodcut, etching, and lithography, but each print usually exists in only a few impressions, as he liked to print his work himself. His early prints reflect the mannered linearism of Jugendstil, the German version of Art Nouveau, but this was soon displaced by a harsh contrast of planes and abrupt angularity influenced by his admiration for medieval German woodcuts. In addition to paintings and prints, he also made wooden sculpture, rough-hewn and harshly coloured (Dancing Woman, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1911).

Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig (b Aschaffenburg, 6 May 1880; d Frauenkirch, Switzerland, 15 June 1938). German Expressionist painter, printmaker, and sculptor, the dominant figure in the Brücke group. Like the other members of the group, he was influenced by Post-Impressionism, particularly Gauguin and van Gogh, by Fauvism, and by Munch. He also claimed that he was the first of the group to appreciate Polynesian and other primitive art (which he saw in the Zwinger Museum in Dresden), but this had little obvious effect on his work. His paintings are usually of the human figure, including portraits and nudes (he often spent the summer months in seclusion in the country or on the coast, where he could draw and paint nude models in natural movement). There is often an explicit erotic quality in his work and sometimes a feeling of malevolence. His forms are typically harsh and jagged, and his colours dissonant. From 1910 he began to spend much of his time in Berlin and he settled there in 1911. During the next few years his work developed more independently of the other members of Die Brücke, and his criticisms of his associates were an important factor in the break-up of the group in 1913. His most celebrated paintings of this period are a series of street scenes of Berlin that are regarded as marking one of the highpoints of Expressionism. In a style that had become more spiky and aggressive he depicted the pace, the glare, and the tension of big city life (Street, Berlin, 1913, MoMA, New York).

Kirchner was drafted into the German army in 1915, but he was soon discharged after a mental and physical collapse. In 1916 he was hit by a car in Berlin and during his long period of recuperation he settled in Frauenkirch, near Davos, in Switzerland, which became his home for the rest of his life. By 1921 he had recovered from heavy dependence on drugs, but he never fully regained mental equilibrium. When he started painting again he concentrated on mountain landscapes and peasant scenes, his work gaining in serenity what it lost in vigour. From the late 1920s his style began to move towards abstraction, as he painted less directly from nature. Many exhibitions of his work were held in the 1930s, in Germany and elsewhere, but in the middle of the decade he was overcome again by mental anxiety and physical deterioration. The inclusion of his work in the Nazi exhibition of degenerate art in 1937 caused him acute distress and the following year he shot himself. Throughout his career, printmaking (in woodcut, etching, and lithography) was as important to him as painting and he ranks as one of the 20th century's greatest masters in this field. He also made wooden sculpture, rough-hewn and harshly coloured.

Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig (1880–1938). German Expressionist painter, printmaker, and sculptor, the dominant figure in the Brücke group. Like the other members of the group, he was influenced by Post-Impressionism, particularly Gauguin and van Gogh, by Fauvism, and by Munch. He also claimed that he was the first of the group to appreciate Polynesian and other primitive art (which he saw in the Zwinger Museum in Dresden), but this had little obvious effect on his work. His paintings consisted mainly of figure compositions, including portraits and nudes (he often spent the summer months in seclusion in the country or on the coast, where he could draw and paint nude models in natural movement). There is often an explicit erotic quality in his work and sometimes a feeling of malevolence. His forms are typically harsh and jagged, and his colours dissonant. From 1910 he began to spend much of his time in Berlin and he settled there in 1911. During the next few years his work developed more independently of the other members of Die Brücke, and his criticisms of his associates were an important factor in the the break-up of the group in 1913. His most celebrated paintings of this period are a series of street scenes of Berlin that are regarded as marking one of the high points of Expressionism. In a style that had become more spiky and aggressive he depicted the pace, the glare, and the tension of big city life (Street, Berlin, 1913, MoMA, New York). Kirchner was drafted into the German army in 1915, but he was soon discharged after a mental and physical collapse. In 1916 he was hit by a car in Berlin and during his long period of recuperation he settled in Frauenkirch, near Davos, in Switzerland, which became his home for the rest of his life. By 1921 he had recovered from heavy dependence on drugs, but he never fully regained mental equilibrium. When he started painting again he concentrated on mountain landscapes and peasant scenes, his work gaining in serenity what it lost in vigour. From the late 1920s his style began to move towards abstraction, as he painted less directly from nature. Many exhibitions of his work were held in the 1930s, in Germany and elsewhere, but in the middle of the decade he was overcome again by mental anxiety and physical deterioration. The inclusion of his work in the Nazi exhibition of degenerate art in 1937 caused him acute distress and the following year he shot himself. Throughout his career, printmaking (in woodcut, etching, and lithography) was as important to him as painting and he ranks as one of the 20th century's greatest masters in this field. He also made wooden sculpture, rough-hewn and harshly coloured.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , 1880–1938, German expressionist painter and graphic artist. He studied art in Munich and was greatly impressed by the neoimpressionists. Kirchner studied Oceanic and other primitive sculpture at the Dresden Museum of Ethnology in 1904. This art was of great importance for him and for the movement known as the Brücke , which he cofounded the following year. Also inspired by late Gothic woodcuts and the art of Edvard Munch , Van Gogh , and the Fauves (see fauvism ), Kirchner merged their expressive forces into powerful and original creations. With startling contrasts of pure color and aggressive forms, Kirchner explored the world of night cafés and the streets of metropolitan Berlin. His savagely executed woodcuts are among the outstanding works in this medium produced in the 20th cent. and are among the most powerful creations of the expressionist vision. He suffered an emotional breakdown in 1914 and moved to a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland, after World War I. In the next few years, his art became less tortured and more abstract. In 1938, following the Nazi condemnation of "degenerate art," including some 600 of Kirchner's works, the artist, in failing health, committed suicide. Characteristic works are the portrait of Erich Heckel and his wife (Smith College Mus.); The Street (1913; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City); and the illustrations for Peter Schlemihl (1916).

Bibliography: See biographical study by D. E. Gordon (1968).

Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig (1880–1938) German painter and printmaker, a leader of the expressionist artists known as Die Brücke. Kirchner characteristically portrayed urban scenes. His art was condemned by the Nazis as degenerate and he committed suicide. See also expressionism