"Cats" by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

The cat stands on the edge, neck curved up like that of a hissing snake. Milky, round eyes stare out from a diminished head. Black shadow falls across the creature's back in the shape of a wing with feathered texture across the edge. Is this cat or chimera, feline or sphinx?

A whisper of a figure in the background is muzzled by the upright companion's aggressive stance. A passive state of mind comes across with ears and eyes cast down and the hatch-marks across the head and back like so much background debris.

The house cat at rest seems a domesticated loaf, but in the right moment, under the right lighting, we see that within all tamed beasts, wild seed can still germinate.

"Prophetess" by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

In 1937 the Nazi Party organized an exhibit called Die Ausstellung "Entartete Kunst" (in English, the "Degenerate Art" Exhibition) to run concurrent with the Great German Art Exhibition, and thus showcase the dangers of so-called cultural disintegration.

Confiscated works of modern art by artists such as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff were hung in a haphazard manner alongside mocking and critical slogans, such as "Nature as seen through sick minds." Artists were specifically criticized for finding inspiration from "primitive" people such as Africans, Polynesians, and Gypsies, insulting German womanhood, distorting natural forms, and exhibiting a lack of artistic skill.

The Degenerate Art Exhibition included over 50 of Schmidt-Rottluff's works. I do not know if this particular woodcut (created in 1919) appeared in the exhibition. However, it (and most of Schmidt-Rottluff's work) easily fits the bill for all the Nazi's criticisms: there's an obvious African art influence, a woman's face is depicted in a way which is unflattering and unfeminine by conventional, Western standards, the human form is highly stylized so as to be more emotionally expressive than naturalistic, and the overall design is simplistic.

This portrait cuts through the distractions of dazzling craft and pretty imagery. The woman soothsayer speaks loud and clear as she gestures with her hand for dramatic emphasis. She transforms into something alien, yet somehow familiar. Her form is her message, a juxtaposition of primal past and future unknown.

Indeed, for us in the year 2014, she has already arrived, her predictions made manifest in the postmodern age.

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.