Acrobats 1932

Curator: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's 1932 watercolor, "Acrobats", presents us with an intriguing study in form and balance. Editor: Immediately striking, isn’t it? The stark contrast and the almost mournful gray washes create an unsettling yet fascinating visual tension. Curator: Indeed. Notice how the forms, though somewhat abstracted, clearly delineate the human figure, two figures entwined in an acrobatic feat. Kirchner employs line and wash to create depth, or perhaps the illusion of depth. Editor: Yes, the materiality is compelling here. Look at the paper itself, so thin, absorbing those washes of ink and pigment. One gets a strong sense of the handmade, the deliberate gesture. Given his personal history and trauma surrounding his service in WWI and institutionalization thereafter, I read an autobiographical intent within the chosen support. Curator: I find it interesting that, despite the grayscale palette, there's a lightness, a dynamism in the composition, no? The interlocking forms create a sense of movement. And look closer, one discerns very faint blush tonalities applied across parts of their skin. This provides subtle accentuation within the larger composition of tones and graphic forms. Editor: Consider the socio-economic context. The Bauhaus, closed only a year prior. Kirchner’s Swiss exile in the mountains of Davos. Did he experience isolation with his move into a landscape marked as primitive, beyond industrialized urban culture? What bearing may his environment have on the production of art—not only regarding location, but resources? Curator: His use of the watercolor medium could certainly reflect resource constraints. And that brings us back to Kirchner's technical skill in handling such unforgiving and capricious mediums such as watercolor. The transparency, the blending – it allows the white of the paper to become intrinsic to the picture. Editor: These details certainly challenge notions of high art and craft. Ultimately, one appreciates Kirchner's attempt to harness this sense of motion with such restraint and such delicate mediumship. Curator: Yes, the inherent limitations of this artistic process reveal quite expressively a striking picture from Kirchner's late work.