Heimkehrende Ziegenherde 1920

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this painting of a returning herd of goats with oil paint, though the exact date is unknown. I love the immediacy of his process; it feels as though he has built the image directly from color. The paint is applied in flat, broad strokes, and the colors buzz against each other. Look at that cadmium yellow ground, and the way the red-brown mountain looms like a giant. The small goats marching along the ridge are barely more than stick figures, their movement suggested through simple repetition. Then, in the foreground, Kirchner introduces these jewel-like tones of deep blue and forest green. These colors help to anchor the composition, as do the shepherd and goats. The painting puts me in mind of Emil Nolde, with whom Kirchner shared an interest in the expressive potential of color. Both artists also understood that painting is about transformation and not replication. And that’s what I find so moving; you see the landscape as a suggestion, an invitation to imagine a world of your own.