Return of the Animals 1919

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painted this expressionist landscape with oil on canvas. I can almost feel Kirchner wrestling with his paints, mixing those bold blues and reds, trying to capture the raw energy of the mountains. Did he stand right there in the thick of it, smearing the paint with big, sweeping gestures? I see him, pushing and pulling the colors until they vibrated with feeling. Those pinks and greens aren’t exactly naturalistic, right? But they kind of capture a deeper reality. It reminds me of Munch or even Van Gogh—artists who used color and brushstrokes to express something beyond the surface of things. You can see how they were all wrestling with similar ideas, trying to push painting into new territories. Painting is like an ongoing conversation across time. Each artist picks up where the last one left off, and then takes it somewhere else.