Lovers 1909

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this drawing of two lovers with ink on paper, it's a few simple dark lines on a pale yellow surface. I can imagine Kirchner bent over the paper, rapidly tracing the contours of the figures, the image coming to life under his hand. There's such an urgency to these lines, you know? The figures are intertwined, almost pressed together, and their forms are simplified, distilled to their most essential. I wonder, what was Kirchner trying to capture here? Was it the raw physicality of the moment, the intensity of their connection? You can see echoes of artists like Munch and Van Gogh in Kirchner's work, that same emotional intensity, the same willingness to push the boundaries of representation. When I look at this, I think of how all artists are in conversation, building on what came before. It’s not about answers, it’s about the ongoing questions.