Foyerszene 1927

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this drypoint titled 'Foyerszene' in 1912. It’s a ghost of a scene, maybe figures in a smoky café, a crowded room where stories overlap. The dominant tones are muted grays and browns. The process feels tentative, like Kirchner is coaxing the image out of the plate with quick scratches. You can almost feel him, head bent close, the burin in his hand as he hesitates, shifts, corrects. I can imagine Kirchner, restless and wired, capturing a moment but also inventing it. What was he thinking about as he wove these lines together? About the anonymity of city life, the electric atmosphere of pre-war Berlin? The lines look like nerves exposed, like he wants to find the structure underlying the human form. These wiry, anxious strokes that try to define the figures relate to his wider exploration of urban alienation and psychological intensity. You can find something similar in the paintings of Munch and the woodcuts of the German Expressionists, a shared language of anxiety and raw emotion. Kirchner, Munch, they were all in conversation, pushing each other, trying to express the unnameable. Like all artists, they were embracing ambiguity and uncertainty.