In the Meadow 1912

Erich Heckel made this print, In the Meadow, with lithographic crayon, and ink, in a way that really shows off the process. Look at the grassy field, with its dry brushstrokes and areas of uneven ink, where the crayon has marked the stone. This is raw and gestural artmaking, it's all about the process. The ink is almost like a living thing, reacting with the surface. It’s dark green and feels heavy and dense. The female figures have an edgy quality. They’re nude, but they’re not soft or idealized. The sharp lines lend a sense of awkwardness and vulnerability. There is this tension between the dark green landscape and the figures themselves. There's a lineage here, of course, you might think of Gauguin, but Heckel, and his peers in Die Brücke, took the conversation in another direction, away from colonial fantasies, toward a more raw and unflinching vision of modern life.