82.122 House

c. 1910

Color woodcut, sheet: 12 5/8 x 11 3/8" (32.2 x 29.1 cm); composition: 10 7/8 x 8 5/8" (27.8 x 21.7 cm)

Signed, ll: E.L. Kirchner; back: Nachlass-stamp, nr. H117

Provenance: Galerie Moeller, Cologne, August 12, 1954

As the most direct means of expressing their intensely personal psychic states, the Expressionists frequently created self-portraits. Kirchner was no exception. This version-first cut in 1907, but not printed until 1926- combines Kirchner’s use of color woodcut technique and a simplified style of self-characterization. While Kirchner’s intention was still the contrast of dark and light inherent in the woodcut technique, he added colors-in this case, a jarring mauve and yellow that heighten the feeling of dissonance. The work, then, typifies Kirchner’s innately Expressionist desire to convey inner emotion and psychic energy, not only through the choice of themes and image, but also through the quality of the medium that was used. Here the grain of the wood used for the woodcut enhances the sense of raw, unadorned feeling that was so central to Kirchner’s conceptions.

Just as his colleague Heckel turned to the world of the music hall and the circus for thematic inspiration, so did Kirchner find these themes convenient for expressing his affinity with “outsiders,” those who lived closer to vital and real experience than bourgeois Europeans. This print is an example of Kirchner’s most ‘primitive” graphic style, with large fields of black and the incorporation of the wood grain itself into the composition.

La Vera Pohl was convinced this was a view of Basel, and idea precipitated by the fact that, in late 1925 and 1926, Kirchner made his first trip to Germany since coming to Switzerland in 1918. He was in Basel on his return trip, in December 1926. Paintings completed during that visit are very similar in style to this watercolor.

Stylistic indications, however, only help to establish the validity of dating the work to that time. Further research, in fact, verifies that this painting is a view over the Limmat River in Zurch. Dr. Wolfgang Henze, director of the Kirchner-Archiv in Campione d’Italia, Switzerland, illustrates in a recent sales catalog a drawing in colored pencil and chalk of a similar view that he dates to 1925. Since Kirchner at that time lived in Davos, in the mountain near Zurich, it is likely that he visited the city several times during these years. It is also possible that the pencil sketch severed as a preliminary drawing for this painting; perhaps Kirchner even painted this watercolor after returning to Davos, using the drawing as his model. He often painted composite views based upon his interpretation of sketches made on the spot. As in his other works of the time, and especially in his use of rich and fluid watercolors, Kirchner here is interested in depicting the idea of movement as the boat goes down the river. He also employed here a device common to most of his cityscapes: the bird’s-eye view, which forces the viewer to be drawn into the scene itself.

Although the color is not as arbitrary and spontaneous as it had been in his earlier works, Kirchner still emphasizes the expressive power of color. He carefully placed the broad contrasting areas of green and blue in the sky to accentuate the reds and browns of the church spires and roof tops. Scale and “correct” perspective rendering are irrelevant to Kirchner’s desired effect, as one can see in the relationship between the boat and the bridge. Kirchner’s technique appears effortless and, if more grounded in realistic representation than his earlier works, the fluidity and spontaneity of his hand is still readily apparent.