Friday 13 July 2012

About the German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Here is a piece of writing about the German Expressionist artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. His lived quite an avant garde life in Germany but tired of the city and modern life and escaped to Davos to live in the country. Sadly his work was regarded as degenerate by the Nazi and he destroyed much of his work so as not to provoke them. This upset proved too much and his life ended shortly.

For me this is out of the question. Nor do I regret it. . . . The delights the world affords are the same everywhere, differing only in their outer forms. Here one learns how to see further and go deeper than in 'modern' life, which is generally so very much more superficial despite its wealth of outer forms." Modern life for Kirchner had been the streets of Dresden and Berlin; his own and other artists' studios; the summer beaches of Fehmarn in the Baltic; the Die Brücke group of avant-garde artists and the Expressionist movement, in both of which he was the central figure; and, finally, the First World War. Now he was in Switzerland, near the Austrian border, where he would remain until his death in 1938.

Mono prints and a computer print





Sunday 8 July 2012

Night paintings.

Saturday night 7 July 2012, I created this darker painting quite late in the early hours of Sunday morning. I'm intrigued by the use of a darker palette, not only for landscapes but for paintings in general. Ended the evening looking at some of Cezanne's paintings in particular a painting of his wife which I liked very much.