Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: The Photographic Work
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Photography & Video
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: The Photographic Work Details
About the Author The painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, was born in Aschaffenburg in 1880. He studied architecture at the technical college in Dresden, and with Erich Heckel, Fritz Bleyl and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, he founded the artists' association Die Brücke (The Bridge). They developed an intense use of color and lines with which they could explore their modern themes of "sexuality, the link between man and nature and big-city life," and express their inner experiences in a very direct style. In 1915 the artist, who had been living in Berlin since 1915, "volunteered" for the army. During basic training in Halle he suffered a physical and mental breakdown. Kirchner worked through his personal crisis, giving it graphic form in some of the 20th century's major works of art. In 1917 he moved to Davos in the Swiss canton of Grisons, where he lived and worked until he took his own life on June 15, 1938. Read more
Reviews
Kirchner paintings I admire profoundly; Kirchner's photographs I'm a little dubious about. He obviously owned a camera and enjoyed using it. But this book is loaded with what I'd call snaps, some of which rank as photographs, the rest are family, friends, high jinks, and local types. Do these snaps add anything to my understanding of Kirchner? Perhaps only that he wasn't as interested in photography as the publishers would have me believe.