Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Soon after graduating I shared a theatrical house with several colleagues in the central street of La Bola in Madrid. It was a lovely house in a wonderful location. My roommates had a poster of two girls hanging to the light of the window. At first sight, I thought the poster was of two African girls. I probably imagine that because the colors were green and brown. I had never seen anything from that painter before, but I really liked the picture and I became interested in it and also in the Brücke movement.
In brief, the German Expressionists seemed fascinating to me. Just a couple of months ago I traveled to Berlin trying to find, in vain, those expressionists. I felt like Ulysses who went on his journey to Itaca; I discovered wonderful art galleries that captivated me while in search of those German Expressionists. Especially, The Gemälde.

This week, to my surprise, an exhibition of those German expressionists open only a few meters from my house. This enigmatic painter, Ludwig Kirchner (Aschaffenburg, 1880 - Frauenkirch, Switzerland, 1938), who drew inspiration from French Fauvism and Primitivism was a part of my youth. His work combines bold colors, which play a more important role in his paintings than silhouettes or forms, with lurid and morbid subjects.

Roughly half of the works in the 153-piece retrospective come from the Swiss museum, while the rest have been loaned by 27 institutions and private collections in Europe and America.

The Expressionist group Brücke, was established in Dresden in 1905, and Kirchner moved to Berlin in 1911. Here his sense of rebellion against the confining principles of academic painting and the stifling rules of bourgeois society took a new turn, as the charged atmosphere and energy of the city was felt in an expression of acute perspectives, jagged strokes, dense angular forms, and caustic color. The street life in Berlin, in particular the familiar presence of prostitutes, identified by their elaborate plumed hats, captured Kirchner's eye and inspired this spectacular series of art work. Shown for the first time in Madrid, these works radiate the vitality, decadence, and underlying mood of imminent danger that characterized Berlin on the eve of World War I.

I trust that the exhibition will seem, inspiring and wonderful, to you.