Hamburg Dancers 1910

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this drawing of dancers in Hamburg using ink on paper. It’s all about the line here, right? I mean, look at those legs kicking up, like dark exclamation points against the flimsy skirts. You can almost feel the energy of the performance, the raw, unvarnished excitement. Kirchner wasn't interested in perfect representation; he was after something more visceral, more immediate. See how he uses these quick, almost jittery lines to define the dancers’ faces, the musicians in the background? There’s a real sense of movement, of fleeting moments captured in ink. The brushstrokes have a kind of urgency, and you can almost hear the scratch of the pen on paper. The skirts have this wild scribble going on. It’s like he’s trying to trap the feeling, the rhythm. You could say he’s channelling Toulouse-Lautrec, but with a German Expressionist twist. Kirchner's all about embracing the rough edges and the raw emotions.