Three Bathers in the Waves 1913

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this woodcut, Three Bathers in the Waves, with stark blacks, greens, and browns; it feels like something carved and then stamped. I imagine Kirchner wrestling with the wood, the resistance of the grain, each mark a deliberate act, a kind of battle with the material. The angularity of the waves, the figures emerging from the water—there's a tension between the abstract forms and the representational subject. It’s like he's trying to capture something primal about the body's relationship to the sea. The rawness of the medium and the boldness of the composition speak to a broader expressionist sensibility. Painters like Kirchner are in constant conversation with each other, with the past, and with the future. This piece feels like a raw expression, an unrefined attempt to capture the energy of the natural world. He’s letting the ambiguity of the image speak for itself.