Die Klosterser Berge 1923

Editor: Here we have Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's 1923 oil painting, "Die Klosterser Berge," or "The Mountains near Davos." I'm really struck by the vivid, almost unsettling colors. It's a landscape, but not exactly calming. What do you make of this bold use of color, particularly in rendering the mountains? Curator: Unsettling is a perfect word for it. Kirchner wasn’t interested in painting what he *saw*, but what he *felt*. He’s wrestling with his trauma through color. Notice how the red mountains on the right loom, almost threateningly? He was grappling with PTSD from the war, exacerbated by his move to the Swiss Alps and the isolation he faced there. Perhaps it reminds me of raw exposed nerves or emotional turbulence rather than earth. Does that make sense? Editor: It does! The color feels more like an emotional state than a representation of nature. So, is the landscape a metaphor then, for his inner turmoil? Curator: Exactly! Think of expressionism as internal landscapes – minds rather than land. The clashing colours mirror conflicting emotions, maybe longing for peace versus the persistent ache of the past. The blues cutting through the mountain almost give me the sensation of a wound... How does that strike you? Editor: Definitely. Now that you mention it, the jagged brushstrokes contribute to that feeling too, as though the landscape is fractured or broken. Almost a premonition for his eventual suicide. Curator: Indeed, one might view that way. And what does this fractured landscape suggest to us about the relationship between mental well-being and the natural world? Can it only ever mirror the feelings that we already feel within ourselves? I find that notion haunting and ultimately tragic. Editor: This really gave me a new perspective on how artists can use something as seemingly straightforward as a landscape to express really complex internal states. Curator: Right? It invites you to look *inward* more than outward. A landscape of the soul, really.