Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - co -founder of the Dresden bridge

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner is not one of the most famous German painters today, although the important painter and graphic artist is one of the founding members of our most important expressionist group of artists, the Dresden Bridge .

Kirchner was born on May 6, 1880 and grew up in a educated household with a scientific impression, the artistic tendencies were to be lived out in an architectural studies, which he completed in Munich and Dresden.

But during the study time, Kirchner had already taken art lessons at the Munich Debschitz School , his acquaintances at the new and reform-oriented art school probably contributed to the fact that Kirchner decided against the architect's profession immediately after completing his studies.

He confirmed his decision to go through life as an artist on June 7, 1905 when he founded “Brücke” community A little later, the friends received support from Emil Nolde , Max Pechstein and Cuno Amiet , Kirchner continued to learn at this time and developed under the influence of the better trained friends from the impressionistically influenced painter as a real expressionist .

He painted landscapes and cityscapes and motifs from the world of variety, but above all always people, in portraits and in files. From 1909, “Dodo” (Doris Great) was a lover and model, the children's model “Fränzi” (Lina Franziska Fehrmann) was shared with Heckel and Pechstein.

Because the success was long in Dresden, Kirchner went to Berlin in 1911, which initially did not improve the situation. However, it was good for his pictures: the colors were used more carefully, so that the pictures were less "shone", its lines became more decisive, the round shapes became angular.

He also said goodbye to the simple rural motifs and turned to the first street scenes, such pictures fit the big city and arrived.

This year he took part in an exhibition in Berlin with other artists in the bridge, the organizer was the new second under the direction of his friend Max Pechstein. At the end of 1911 Pechstein and Kirchner also founded a painting school, the institute “Modern Lessons in Painting”, which, however, had little success.

When Kirchner then excessively emphasized its own meaning in a chronicle of the bridge in 1913, according to the other members, there was a dispute, Kirchner emerged and the group dissolved.

summer of 1912 to 1914 on Fehmarn as early as 1908 , where he created unforgettable coastal pictures. About a tenth of his total work in oil was created during the summer stays, countless drawings and some sculptures.

Then the First World War began, Kirchner immediately reported to be a volunteer, but suffered a nervous breakdown and, among other things, became Morphin. Nachors owes these war horrors to a wonderful, five-part wall painting cycle , which Kirchner created in the sanatorium in 1916.

So far, Kirchner had not been able to make any money with his art, his first sanatorium stays were financed by patrons, the self -portraits of this time (“the drinker”, “self -portrait as a soldier”) show his despair.

However, the triptych of the bathing women and other large-format paintings have been shown in work exhibitions of the Jena Art Association since 1914, Erna Schilling worked for him in Berlin and, through her sales success, created the basics for Kirchner's financial independence and celebrity.

Kirchner himself went to Switzerland in 1917 and had his drug addiction , with the support of Dr. Lucius Spengler, including his wife and iron will, was healed in 1921. A rather stable phase of life followed, since around this time Kirchner's art has also been able to recognize the avant -garde circles.

However, the painter himself became increasingly eccentric , he saw himself not adequately recognized by the critics, restricted the reproduction of his works, wrote even under pseudonym reviews about his art and was increasingly gathering as a more difficult person. He wanted to impose business partners unequal contractual conditions, he was unmatched, and if someone called him expressionists or referred to his belonging to the bridge, Kirchner could really get angry.

Since Kirchner also suffered more and more from the cold winters in Switzerland, he left Switzerland on various visits in Germany in 1925. In Germany he received great admiration, but the hoped -for professorship at an art college did not come about.

Around 1925, his style also changed fundamentally, Kirchner's Malte now increasingly ranged until he developed a strongly abstract style towards the late 1920s. In 1927 he himself wrote about the “Neuer Kirchner” project, in which he, unlike some of his bridge friends, once again developed decisively:

... but I'm putting up a new Kirchner again. Art is constant transformation, and getting old in the usual scheme is craft, not art. ”

His late years are characterized by a surprising variety of styles , which reveals an unbroken joy of experimentation, the abstraction decreased a little towards the end of his life, presentable image composition with expressive light and shadow playing marks his last works.

Where the development would have led, we will always be hidden, because the takeover of the National Socialists put an end to his artistic development: Kirchner was excluded from the Prussian Academy of the Arts in 1937, over 600 of his works were removed from the German museums, a selection of which as “degenerate art” .

Kirchner then returned to Switzerland and shot himself on June 15, 1938. In Kirchner's deeper disappointment on treatment in Germany, the majority of art scientists saw the motive for suicide , recent investigations suspect the cause in the morphine addiction that has been flammed again since 1933.

Others consider it a cynicism when asked whether the misdeeds of the National Socialists have only led to an breaking up of addiction or directly for suicide. In any case, Kirchner proves his kind of bitter humor when he leaves the herd of sheep in his suicide (1938) on the easel.

The entire work of the painter, graphic artist and sculptor Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, for example, praised the Frankfurt Städel Museum from April 23 to August 8, 2010 with the then 170 workspective in Germany.

On April 26, 2010, “Die Welt” editor Hans-Joachim Müller wrote the following:

"One event: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner shows the retrospective in Städel in Frankfurt."

a small impression of this great and extraordinary retrospective via the following video: