Kirchner und Dodo im Café 1906

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made 'Kirchner and Dodo in the Café' using crayon, and you can see the process right there on the surface of the work, like the tracks of thinking. It's all about the materiality here. The colors are laid down in these hatched, almost frantic marks, building up this layered surface. Yellows and greens create a kind of vibrating energy, but there are softer areas too, like the muted pink of Dodo’s face. I’m drawn to the way Kirchner uses that yellow outline around the figures; it both separates them from and connects them to their surroundings. It flattens the space, but also makes them pop. This piece reminds me a little of some of Bonnard’s interiors, that same feeling of intimacy mixed with a kind of psychological tension. Kirchner isn’t trying to give us some definitive statement, but instead captures a moment, a mood, a feeling. It's an invitation to look and feel, to engage with the world in all its messy, beautiful complexity.