Street Scenes 

Editor: Here we have Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's oil painting "Street Scenes." The figures feel a bit claustrophobic to me, crammed into a flattened perspective. What strikes you most about its composition? Curator: Indeed, the compression of space is critical. Note the relationship between the figures: their proximity denies individual depth, binding them instead within the plane. Color functions similarly, doesn't it? The pervasive blues and greens aren't descriptive but structural. How does that limitation of hue inform your reading? Editor: I guess it makes everything feel less realistic and more symbolic somehow. There's an unease from the skewed colours and looming figures, a very strange combination of vibrant and muted tones that blend together throughout. Is that what Kirchner intended? Curator: "Intention" is perhaps too narrow a frame. Consider the painting as a system of visual signs. Line, for example, serves primarily to define form, but also agitates the surface, contributing to the overall tension. Observe how it rarely soothes; it almost always disrupts. Does the painting resolve itself visually, or remain fragmented? Editor: Fragmented, definitely fragmented. It's unsettling because of it! I'm not sure how to interpret it, though. Curator: The key may be to focus on those fragmentations, those tensions of line and colour. What does it suggest that the structure is so insistent, yet defies wholeness? We can use theoretical models to look closely at how he has painted this 'scene'. It shows something beyond what meets the eye. Editor: I see, looking at the form helps understand the whole feeling the painting creates. I didn’t expect such careful construction could create such tension! Curator: Precisely. Sometimes, the most effective disturbances are elegantly planned, and that's something I hadn't considered fully about Kirchner's works before.