Female Nude 1908

This is a woodcut print of a female nude by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. I can just imagine the artist carving into the block to make this image, his hand following his vision. See how the crisp contrast between the dark ink and the paper creates this super graphic image? I wonder what he was thinking about when he made this. The dark strokes make this woman look almost as if she’s caged. The marks are raw, energetic, not delicate. Maybe he was trying to capture the female form, but also express something more, like an emotional state, some kind of tension or confinement. These expressionist guys were all in dialogue with one another, responding to modern life, and exploring the depths of human experience through their art. In the end, artists make art for all kinds of reasons, but it's up to us to decide what it means.