Alpine Pasture 1918

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this print, Alpine Pasture, and you can almost feel him working at the woodblock, digging out the image with real force. It's black and white, which gives it this stark, graphic quality. I can imagine him there, wrestling with the wood, maybe feeling a bit isolated up in those mountains, trying to capture the weight of those peaks. The contrast is so high, it’s like he’s carving out the very essence of the place, right? You’ve got these sharp, jagged lines defining the mountains, and then these little clusters of buildings huddling together in the foreground. The sky is wild, full of scratchy lines that suggest movement and energy, so, I think Kirchner is totally in conversation with other Expressionist painters. Like they're all pushing each other to see how far they can go with conveying emotion through form and line. Painting, printmaking, it's all about this exchange, this passing of the baton, where one artist picks up where another leaves off, finding their own way to express the inexpressible.