Zwei sitzende Mädchen im Freien 1928

Here at the Städel Museum is a print by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner showing two women sitting outside, it has these bold, scratchy lines and a ghostly grey palette. I imagine Kirchner digging into the block, wrestling with the image as it slowly emerges. You know, sometimes making art feels like you're fighting with the materials, and I bet he felt that here! What was it like to sit with two models, to really look at them. You know I don't think he was interested in prettifying them or softening the lines, he really looked at them, warts and all. He was trying to get to the raw essence of their being! There is a real intensity here, you can feel Kirchner's own emotional state etched into those lines. It reminds me a bit of Edvard Munch. Artists are always in conversation with each other across time, you know, borrowing and riffing on ideas. Ultimately painting is about feeling, about trying to capture something that words just can't express. It's about embracing the messy, uncertain process of being human.