Goats and Clouds 1919

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this evocative print, "Goats and Clouds," with etching. The whole image is built up of thin, scratchy lines, like he was drawing with a very sharp needle. The physical act of dragging that needle across the plate gives the image its raw energy. The clouds are like feverish scribbles, a dark mass looming over the more carefully delineated goats. See how the lines around the goats are more controlled, describing their bodies and horns with a nervous precision. There’s a tension here between the wildness of nature, represented by those chaotic clouds, and the artist's attempt to capture and contain it. Kirchner, known as a founder of German Expressionism, was deeply interested in portraying emotional states, and this print is a perfect example. Think of other expressionists like Edvard Munch, there is a similar quality of anxiety and emotional intensity in their works. But here, it’s the marks themselves that carry the feeling.