Book illustration side of the military road 1923

This is a book illustration by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, with stark black and white marks carving out an image of labor and perhaps, community. It’s all about the cut here, the raw physicality of the woodblock, and how that transfers to the page. Look at the figure at the bottom, his face in profile. The cuts are so sharp, so immediate, it’s like Kirchner is wrestling with the material, trying to capture something essential about the person and the scene. The ground almost seems to be breathing because of the shapes which could also be bales of hay or cut wheat. The contrast is so high, the image feels almost brutal, but there’s a sensitivity there too. It reminds me a little of Paula Modersohn-Becker, another German artist working around the same time, grappling with similar themes of rural life and the human form. Both artists leave us with something that feels incomplete, searching, but ultimately powerful in its ambiguity.