Kopf Hugo Biallowons im Profil 1915

This drawing of Hugo Biallowons in profile was made by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner with a blunt, almost brutal charcoal. There’s something raw and immediate about the way Kirchner attacks the paper, you can sense the pressure he applied through those thick lines, and it's like he’s trying to capture more than just a likeness; he's trying to capture a mood, a feeling. The energy in the marks, especially around the eyes and hands, makes you feel like you’re in the room with them. The hands are particularly interesting, almost like a tangle of wires, but somehow they still convey a sense of fragility and emotion. Kirchner's expressionist contemporaries like Heckel come to mind. There is that similar desire to render the psychological state through aggressive mark making. The lack of detail forces you to fill in the blanks, to project your own emotions onto the subject.