Bathers under Trees 1914

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made "Bathers under Trees" using woodcut techniques. I can almost feel the artist carving out these figures and shapes, the black ink contrasting against the white of the paper. Imagine Kirchner, wrestling with the woodblock, figuring out how to represent light and shadow, form and space, with just these bold, graphic marks. There's this push and pull between abstraction and figuration, as the bathers are both recognizable and distorted, flattened, and stylized. They are Expressionist bathers. And look how he uses the negative space, the un-inked parts of the paper, to create depth and airiness. It's like he's sculpting with light, carving out these figures from the darkness. It reminds me of the German Expressionists' interest in emotion and psychology. Artists are always in conversation with one another across time. The process of making art is itself a form of inquiry that embraces ambiguity, allowing for many interpretations and meaning.