Dancers and Performers (Page from a Sketchbook) c. 1911

This is Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's 'Dancers and Performers', a page from a sketchbook with some very spare marks. It's all about the line, a means to create something suggestive. You get a sense of movement from it, you get a sense of bodies, limbs. I find the quality of the line here very intriguing. It's not precious, it's not overworked, it's kind of relaxed, but also, very descriptive. I'm looking at the bottom of the page where there is a loose doodle, a wiggly line, almost like a signature, and it suggests to me an immediacy, the artist capturing a fleeting moment. This gives the work a raw and honest feeling. It makes me think of the way Cy Twombly worked, embracing the accidental and the unfinished. Neither Kirchner nor Twombly are trying to nail anything down, and that's what I love about art: the way it can hint at things without ever having to say them outright.