Bauern auf der Alp 1922

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this drawing, "Bauern auf der Alp," in 1922 using pencil and crayon. Look at how he's used the colored crayon to lay down the roofs of the houses and how those marks bleed into the gray of the shadows, pulling the scene together. The materiality here is all about the looseness of the line. Kirchner isn’t trying to hide the process. You can see every stroke, every decision. I particularly love the way he's rendered the cow in the foreground, how the lines almost vibrate with energy, capturing the animal's weight and presence. It reminds me a little bit of some of the drawings of Van Gogh, that similar urgency and directness. But Kirchner's got his own thing, a kind of raw, honest vision. It's like he’s inviting us to see not just the scene, but the act of seeing itself.