two acrobats 1932 - 1933

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this painting of two acrobats with oil on canvas. See how the bodies are defined by these bold outlines, filled with flat planes of pink, red, and cream? You can almost feel the artist figuring out how these bodies relate to one another. Each mark seems like a decision, a step in a dance between intention and accident. Imagine Kirchner, paintbrush in hand, maybe muttering to himself, trying to capture the tension, the balance, the sheer physicality of these figures. It’s like he’s wrestling with the paint, coaxing it into submission. And then there are those colors, the way they push and pull against each other, creating a sense of depth and movement. It reminds me of Matisse, but with a darker, more Expressionist edge. The flat blocks of colour become more interesting when you realise that the artist painted in blocks, and left flat blocks on the canvas. The artist is using those bold blocks to see what else they can do. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, about the conversations that paintings have with each other across time?