Ins Meer Schreitender (Hans Gewecke) 1913

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner made this print, "Ins Meer Schreitender (Hans Gewecke)," with bold strokes of color and line. You get the sense he was really pushing the material and the process. Look at the way the figure is rendered, how his dark body is set against those pools of yellow, maybe sunlight on the water. It's not just about what you see, but how you feel the space. I think Kirchner's not trying to give us a photograph, but rather a kind of emotional weather. Those scratchy lines that make up the waves, they’re so alive and immediate, and the way the colors bleed a little at the edges. You can almost feel the grit of the woodblock, the pressure of the hand. He’s a bit like Munch, trying to show an internal state. It’s not a fixed idea, but more of a question mark.