Lot Essay
Due to poor health Kirchner moved to Davos in Switzerland at the beginning of 1917 and by the end of the year he had recovered sufficiently to start painting again. His new surroundings gave him a fund of challening pictorial material. He started to depict the villages in the mountains, the farmers doing their work and, above all, the magnificent landscape with its dramatic mountains, peaceful pastures and thick woods.
In 1923 Kirchner had moved from his house 'In den Lärchen' into another situated on the Wildboden that had been furnished to his requirements. The Sertig valley began behind his new house and until his death he was inspired to depict it in ever-changing ways.
"The late development and final resolution of Kirchner's last expressionist stylee occurred between 1921 and 1923 ... While still compatible with inwardness and subjectivity, the paintings are ... more simply monumental than those of the immediately preceding years" (D. E. Gordon, op. cit., p. 119).
The vibrant colour palette with its striking purples, strong blues and greens as well as the daring use of horizon line moved right to the top of the picture fully justifies Gordon's belief that, "Kirchner's late styles remain boldly innovational to the end ... he retains that inner curiosity and formal inventiveness which had characterised his work from its beginnings. More like Picasso than any other contemporary artist, ranging in temperament and in style from extremes of expression to those of abstraction, from sheer decorative beauty to stunningly intuitive symbolic forms, Kirchner at Wildboden successfully wedded discipline with fantasy" (D. E. Gordon, op. cit., p. 126).
In 1923 Kirchner had moved from his house 'In den Lärchen' into another situated on the Wildboden that had been furnished to his requirements. The Sertig valley began behind his new house and until his death he was inspired to depict it in ever-changing ways.
"The late development and final resolution of Kirchner's last expressionist stylee occurred between 1921 and 1923 ... While still compatible with inwardness and subjectivity, the paintings are ... more simply monumental than those of the immediately preceding years" (D. E. Gordon, op. cit., p. 119).
The vibrant colour palette with its striking purples, strong blues and greens as well as the daring use of horizon line moved right to the top of the picture fully justifies Gordon's belief that, "Kirchner's late styles remain boldly innovational to the end ... he retains that inner curiosity and formal inventiveness which had characterised his work from its beginnings. More like Picasso than any other contemporary artist, ranging in temperament and in style from extremes of expression to those of abstraction, from sheer decorative beauty to stunningly intuitive symbolic forms, Kirchner at Wildboden successfully wedded discipline with fantasy" (D. E. Gordon, op. cit., p. 126).