Zwei sitzende Frauen, eine davon als Akt c. 1915

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this drawing of two women sometime around 1911, and it’s now in the Städel Museum. Looking at the furious, broken lines, I can imagine him attacking the paper, almost wrestling with it. There's a raw energy here, a sense of urgency. I wonder, what was Kirchner trying to capture? Was he thinking about bodies and space, or maybe the psychological tension between the women? That leg jutting out, those eyes staring... It's like he's trying to get at something beyond the surface, something a little unsettling. These scratchy lines remind me of other German Expressionists, like Heckel or Schmidt-Rottluff. They were all grappling with similar ideas, pushing the boundaries of representation, trying to find new ways to express the intensity of modern life. Each artist builds on and responds to the discoveries of the others in the lineage of art. I get the sense that Kirchner, like all artists, was having a conversation with the world through his work.