"Frau Mit Katze" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Sharp nails reach out, black hairs, shiny and straight as a poker. A connection about to be made, lunge and seize. What is this relationship? Are we friends or foes? Equals or master and captive? And if the latter, which is which?

Die Brücke Woodcuts on Display at the National Gallery of Art

Head of Dr. Bauer, Kirchner

While I was in DC this past weekend checking out the Kiyochika exhibition, I also took a stroll inside the National Gallery of Art to check out Modern German Prints and Drawings from the Kainen Collection (on display through June 29.)

I was specifically hoping to find woodcuts by members of Die Brücke, and I was not disappointed. All my favorites were represented: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel, Otto Mueller, and of course the unmatched Ernst Kirchner. It was the first time I've had a chance to see more than a mere reproduction in an art history book of Kirchner's Five Women In the Street.

I was struck by the large size of many of the portraits, figures, and some landscapes hanging on the walls. All of Kirchner's portraits were larger than life-sized. This, combined by the crude and expressive style, made me feel not only captivated, but shrunk and quieted by their charismatic presence. Kirchner's vividly-colored woodcut Head of Dr. Bauer - with its beady, blue eyes - was particularly monstrous.

Five Women In the Street, Kirchner

This exhibition isn't a particularly complete look at German Expressionism; it definitely left me wanting more, as I I felt it didn't present enough of the most powerful work to really get across the drama and passion behind the movement. But this sampling does at least include work representing all the major players.

It is interesting in that the exhibition includes these heavy hitters alongside other, lesser-known artists who were not part of that movement, but who were working at the same time and speaking the same language. At first I felt a little confused by the array of works, but after a while it seemed to make sense in that it took Die Brücke out of its own narrow focus and put it in the appropriate larger cultural context.

"Bathers Throwing Reeds" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

The two men in showy postures seem to look back at me, while the two women standing still in the water look down. The women appear more isolated and absorbed in their banal activity, while the men are exhibitionists. I find myself wondering, because the figures are so abstract, if this difference in postures is why I assume the two in the background are women (the ones in the foreground are obviously men.) I conclude that my assumption about their sex is more based on the women's generous hips. I look longer, and I think, these colors are strange. What time of day could this possibly be? The sky is black, but the green ground and orange bodies seem lit by the sun. I'm excited by the other-worldliness of this roughly-carved-out, electric-lizard-green place. Why don't the women get involved in the performance? Maybe they are just too used to it.