VIBRANT METROPOLIS / IDYLLIC NATURE - Kirchner. The Berlin Years

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s move from Dresden to Berlin in 1911 marked a turning point in his art. Under the impression of this most modern metropolis in Europe, during the years between 1912 and 1915 the artist created works which in their exaggerated and concentrated manner can really be regarded as metaphors for the attitude to life at the beginning of the 20th century.

Berlin, an industrial centre with accelerating traffi c and a population of three million, acted as a cultural centre of gravity for the whole of Europe. It was a metropolis of the arts and of addictive pleasures, vibrating with challenging energy and challenged intellect. Kirchner contrasted all this with summers spent painting with concentrated productivity on the arcadian island of Fehmarn. In his art both places are linked by the pictorial substance of a form of expression which was in line with the times and also directed against all convention. A succinct selection of works and a series of essays by illustrious authors that focus on these pictures make this decisive phase in Kirchner’s oeuvre come alive in this volume.