Scene at a Café c. 1926

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this painting of a café scene with what looks like oil paint, and a pretty free hand. I can really see the layering and movement in the brushstrokes, especially around the figures. It’s like he was carving them out of the scene. The color palette is kinda strange and dreamlike, a pinky-purple sky, green skin and blue skin, and that acid yellow wall… I wonder what it felt like for Kirchner to be in that café, or to remember it? Maybe he wanted to capture not just what he saw, but how it felt to be there, the alienation and the buzz. It reminds me a little of Munch, but with even weirder colors. The faces especially are so alive with just a few strokes. That one green face really gets me, like he's not quite there, or he's not quite human even. When you see paintings like this it really makes you realize how connected painters are across time and place, each one riffing on what came before, pushing painting into new territory. It’s a conversation that never ends.