Portrait of Otto Mueller 1915

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this portrait of Otto Mueller, here at the Städel Museum, with bold color and graphic lines. It’s like he carved the image into the surface, and the wood’s grain gives it a kind of raw energy. I can almost feel Kirchner wrestling with the block, trying to capture something essential about Mueller. Look at the way he uses red and blue in the background – not to create a realistic space, but to amp up the emotional temperature. The angularity reminds me of some of the German Expressionist painters I admire. You know, I’ve always thought of painting as a kind of conversation, with artists talking to each other across time. Kirchner’s work here makes me think about the fraught history of portraiture, and how that’s evolved through abstraction. It's an ongoing negotiation between representation and expression. Kirchner’s work invites us to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty. It’s not about finding one definitive answer, but about staying open to the possibilities.