Red Cocotte 1914

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this drawing with pastel, pushing and pulling the pigment across the paper. It must have been so exciting to work with these pastels! I can just imagine Kirchner, working quickly, almost manically, building up these layers. What I love about the pastels is the way they allow the artist to work expressively, and I get a real sense of that raw energy here. You can see that restless drive in the slashing strokes. The red of the figure really pops against the cool blues and violets, and there is a tension between the figure and the anonymous dark shapes. This piece reminds me of some of his other street scenes, and I’m thinking about the way these artists were capturing modern life at the time, full of excitement, but also anxiety. Kirchner’s work, like so much expressionist painting, is always in dialogue with other artists. The joy of painting is in this constant conversation!