Boy with Cat 1919

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this woodcut called "Boy with Cat" and well, it's hard and soft, right? I imagine the artist, Kirchner, wrestling with that block of wood. You know, really going at it to carve out those stark, jagged shapes. It's like he's digging into something raw, exposing the grain, the very guts of the material. And that yellow paper! It gives this eerie glow and a strange warmth to the starkness of the black ink. I'm thinking about what it means to show a kid and a pet. Kirchner is making it so psychologically fraught. The blocks of black ink feel emotionally heavy, don't they? The cat and boy kind of merge into one another - it's hard to tell what's what. It's not sentimental or sweet. There's a tension there. It reminds me how painters are always talking to each other, across time, even arguing, pushing, and pulling at the same questions about how we see and feel.