Kopf 1919

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff made this black and white woodcut, titled "Kopf," which means "head" in German, at some point in his career, now it lives at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The stark contrast makes me think about the act of carving itself – the artist digging into the wood, figuring out what to leave and what to take away to conjure this face. I wonder what Schmidt-Rottluff was thinking when he made this. It’s like he's wrestling with the essence of portraiture. There’s an intensity in those eyes, a kind of simplified gaze. He wasn’t interested in surface realism. I imagine he wanted to get at something deeper, something rawer. The textures! Where the tool bit into the wood, the way the light catches the rough edges. All these marks have a voice. They are not just decorative flourishes; they’re part of the emotional punch. You can see the influence of other Expressionist painters. Artists are always talking to each other, across time and space, riffing off ideas and pushing boundaries. It’s an ongoing conversation.