Badende 1905

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this pastel drawing of bathers, Badende, on paper, and it feels like he was working quickly to capture a moment, a mood. The colors are muted, earthy, but with these surprising pops of blue and orange that keep your eye moving, like a visual dance. I love how he uses these thick, dark lines to define the figures, but also to create these abstract shapes that feel almost like a landscape of their own. Look at how the pastel is layered, almost scrubbed into the paper in places, and then left as a light scumble in others, it's a real lesson in how much you can do with a limited palette. In the bottom left, there is a figure, drawn simply, yet full of tension. Kirchner makes you feel the weight of the body, the way the light catches the skin. Artists like Matisse explored similar territory, that tension between representation and abstraction, but Kirchner’s got this raw, almost desperate energy that's all his own. He reminds us that art is always a conversation.