Five Women on the Street 1914

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this black and white woodcut, Five Women on the Street, with a very sharp knife. Look at the way he’s carved out these angular shapes and hard lines. It’s like he’s attacking the wood, digging into it, which gives the print this raw, edgy feeling. I love how he used the stark contrast of black and white to create these almost mask-like faces on the women. It’s unsettling, a bit grotesque, but also super captivating. The way he’s stylized the figures, reducing them to these geometric forms, really emphasizes the artificiality and alienation of modern urban life. There’s something almost sculptural about the way he’s carved the bodies, giving them this forceful, three-dimensional presence. Notice the background; it’s not just decoration. Those jagged lines and shapes add to the overall sense of unease and chaos. This piece reminds me of some of the early Valeska Gert portraits by Otto Dix, both artists using a similar language of distortion and exaggeration to capture the anxieties of their time. Kirchner isn’t giving us any easy answers, but he's inviting us to look closer at the world around us.