Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)

KIRCHNER'S EARLY WOOD SCULPTURES In a letter to Gustav Schiefler dated 12 September 1913, Kirchner wrote: "I have made a few figures in wood sculpture here. Besides the freedom of drawing, it provides me with that compelling rhythm of form closed in the block. Both of these elements [provide] instinctive picture building. Instinctive, not doctrinaire." Most of Kirchner's early sculptures are destroyed or missing and these two rare examples entitled Stehendes Mädchen and Liegende were rediscovered only recently, having been lost since their sale from the Artist's Estate in 1953. Both were photographed by Kirchner in circa 1924 (see illustrations). Liegende is seen against a stark, white textured wall, the rough surface of the wall balancing the rough-hewn surface of the carved wood, whilst Stehendes Mädchen, with its more refined surface, is photographed against a painting in the artist's studio; a rich composition which complements the mood of the sculpture. Liegende dates from circa 1911-1912, whilst Stehendes Mädchen was executed circa 1914-1915. As such, the sculptures represent Kirchner when he was arguably at the height of his career, working in close alliance with other artists from the Die Brücke group in Dresden and Berlin. The few remaining examples of such works are rough-hewn, as is particularly evident in Liegende, where the chisel marks are intentionally left on the surface of the wood. This illustrates how Kirchner and his colleagues felt the importance of emphasising the medium in which they worked. In his essay "Die Holzbildwerke von Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff im Hamburgischen Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe" (in "Museum für Gegenwart: Zeitschrift der deutschen Museen für Neuer Kunst", 1930-31, no. 1, p. 107), Max Sauerlandt emphasised the importance to Die Brücke artists of remaining in touch with nature not only through their painting, but also through their sculpture: "The pure saturated colours applied to the wood never actually hide the structure of the wood nor the traces of the working. Every blow of the axe and every cut of the knife remain directly available to the eye - as if we can feel and taste them." Sauerlandt's ideas about the correlation between nature and the unalienated creation of Die Brücke sculpture is confirmed when we read Kirchner's words to Gustav Schiefler in a letter dated 27th June 1911, "It is so good for painting and drawing to carve figures. It gives drawing more determination and it is a sensual pleasure, when blow for blow the figures grows out of the tree trunk. In every tree trunk a figure is to be found, you need only pare away the wood." (J. Lloyd, German Expressionism, London, 1991, p. 78.) Both in the way the sculptures are carved and the way in which they are hand-painted clearly owes much to Kirchner's knowledge of African sculpture. It has generally been difficult in the past to establish exactly how familiar Die Brücke artists were with African sculpture, as there do not appear to have been large numbers of tribal works on public view in Dresden until 1910, when a collection of Camerooni sculptures entered the Staatliches Museum für Volkerkunde. However, Kirchner was in Berlin for long periods, and there the Museum für Volkerkunde did have a large Camerooni sculpture collection on view, with which he would doubtless have been well-acquainted. The influence of tribal sculpture and the resulting primitive feeling that runs throughout Kirchner's sculptural work is clear from his emphasis on the natural medium in which he worked and his direct engagement with it. His sympathy for the material, which he combines with a sophisticated sense of space, is discussed in his essay "Uber die plastischen Arbeiten E. L. Kirchners", written under his pseudonym, Louis de Marsalle, in Der Cicerone, XVII, no. 14, in 1925: "... how different sculpture looks, which the artist himself forms with his own hands from genuine materials, where every rise and fall is shaped by the sensitivity of the maker's hand, where the strongest blows and the gentlest carving directly expresses the artists' feelings". Whilst he distanced his art from Modernism, Kirchner nonetheless wanted his contribution to modernity to be recognised, "Kirchner", he wrote, "... ist, soweit ich es kenne, der einzige Plastiker unserer Tage, dessen Formen sich nicht auf die Antike zurückfahren lassen. Er formt, wie in seiner Malerei, direkt sein Erlebnis aus den Gestalten des heutigen Lebens ... diese Arbeiten ... sind ebenso weit von den Griechen wie von den Negern entfernt, weil sie unmittelbar geboren sind aus der Anschauung des heutigen Lebens" (Davoser Tagebuch, pp. 218-219.) But although in this passage Kirchner claims that the influence of African sculpture on his work was minimal, he later states in his diaries his admiration for it: "Wie die Wilden mit unendlicher Geduld aus dem harten Holz die Figur schnitzt, die Verkörperung seines Sehens, so schafft der Künstler in muhsamer komplizierter technischer Arbeiten ... im Schweisse Deines Angesichts sollst Du Dein Brot Essen". (L. de Marsalle, "Über Kirchners Graphik", Genius, Vol. I, no. 2, p. 351.) What remains incontestable is the fact that the Brücke artists took inspiration from the immediacy of tribal sculpture, the way the artist was able to remain sympathetic to the material without being distanced by any casting process. The artist-creator should be seen as one individual, with responsibility for the creative process from start to finish, "wenn man sich vergegenwärtigt, dass bei dieser alten Arbeitsmethode eigentlich nur das Tonmodell vom Künstler stammt, das Endresultat und alle Arbeit dafür aber von anderen Händen geschafft wird, so begreift man leicht die trube Einförmigkeit beim Anschauen, was wohl bei diesen Kunstwerken eigentlich noch vom Künstler stammt". (ed. L. Grisebach, E. L. Kirchner, Davoser Tagebuch, Cologne, 1968, p. 219.) Both the sculptures Stehendes Mädchen and Liegende are direct, forceful images and there can be no doubt in the viewer's mind how much remains of the artist's labours in each piece. Kirchner described the lack of representational detail in his sculpture as "an impulse towards monumentality" (ibid, p. 220) and certainly the simple, strong forms of these two nudes bear out the spontaneity and power of his work. They thus stand before us not only as wonderful examples of Die Brücke sculpture, representative of all the ideas which held the movement together at this time, but also as fine, individual expressions of Kirchner's distinctive style.

Details

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)

Liegende

hand-painted carved wood (chestnut)
27in. (68.5cm.) long

Executed circa 1911-1912

Provenance

The Artist's Estate
Galerie Beyeler, Basle, from whom purchased by the husband of the present owner in 1953-1954

Literature

L. de Marsalle (E. L. Kirchner, pseudonym), "Über die plastischen Arbeiten von E. L. Kirchner" in Der Cicerone, Berlin, no. 14, 1925, pp. 691-701 (illustrated)
Exhibition Catalogue, Dresden: Munich: Berlin: Figures du Moderne - L'Expression en Allemagne 1905-1914, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Nov. 1992-March 1993 (illustrated p. 73)

Exhibited

Zurich, Kunsthaus, E. L. Kirchner, March-May 1952, no. 81

Lot Essay

This work is also documented in the Kirchner Archiv der Plastik by a photograph taken by the artist (see illustration).

We are grateful to Dr Wolfgang and Ingeborg Henze of the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archiv, Wichtrach/Berne, for their assistance in cataloguing this work.

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