Im Walde spielende Mädchen 1923

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this etching, 'Girls Playing in the Woods', and honestly, I'm not sure exactly when, but it looks to me like it was made with a kind of furious, jittery energy. The scratchy, almost frantic lines, especially in the trees, are really interesting. It's like he's trying to capture the feeling of being in the middle of the woods, with all the crazy angles and textures, rather than just drawing what he sees. Check out the way the lines around the figure on the right almost vibrate, creating a sense of movement and unease at the same time. Kirchner isn't going for smooth, polished perfection here, it's all about rawness and immediacy. The way he simplifies the figures reminds me a bit of the woodcuts of Edvard Munch, especially in the faces, they are both trying to distill human emotion down to its most essential form. For Kirchner, art wasn't about answers, but about creating a space where those questions could be asked, over and over.