Self-portrait 1925

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this self-portrait with graphite on paper. I love the vulnerability of a drawing, you can see all the marks and decisions the artist made. Look at the angular lines of the face, Kirchner is not trying to soften himself in any way here. There's a tension in his eyes and a certain rigidity to the mouth. It's a raw depiction, the graphite scratching the surface of the paper. And the surface matters so much. The whiteness of the paper makes the graphite pop, while also adding to the unsettling feeling of the portrait. Notice how the shading on the left side of his face contrasts with the bare white space on the right. This creates a dynamic sense of depth, but it also feels like a mask, or a fractured identity. This reminds me of Schiele, another Austrian expressionist, but Kirchner feels rougher, more immediate. Art is a conversation, it doesn’t need to be perfect.