The Street

Berlin
George Grosz, The Street, 1915

Undeniably unsettling, this painting seems eerily reminiscent of a Tim Burton movie (aside from the lack of Johnny Depp.) The crooked buildings, violent sky, and macabre figures tell a story of degeneration; you will not find a heart-warming skeleton love story here.

The painting style spurs from Dadaism, a movement that came out of World War I and protested cultural and intellectual conformity while embracing chaos and absurdity. George Grosz, a prominent Dada artist, adopted the style after returning from his service in the war. He had come to hate the war and detested the world and its inhabitants, especially Germans. He lived in Berlin for many years, despite seeing his fellow German city-dwellers as ugly, obese, and retrograde. Grosz especially hated cities, which to him exemplified the debauchery and corruption of the modern world. His art reflected his pessimism and antipathy with often appalling subject matter and depraved implications.

This painting depicts the nefarious happenings of a city block in the middle of the night. Ghastly figures, floating heads, and Peeping Toms exist under the bloody sky. There are just two women in the scene, one baring all and one concealed behind a larger man. Grosz often painted salaciously, however here he only hints at the indecorous conduct occurring. The people in the windows only add to the scandalous nature of the painting. Although the scene is in public, their featureless faces seem to intrude and scrutinize. There is no privacy in the city, only bad characters and worse intentions.

Besides the people, I can’t help but feel there are bigger monsters at hand. The skyline in the background looks peculiarly like teeth. Black, jagged teeth, in a gaping mouth, enclosing the whole city in the jaws of some bigger evil. If Grosz is trying to tell us that humanity is vile and vulgar, well, he’s done a pretty good job. I feel exposed looking at this painting, yet it captivates me. Like a Rothko, the deeper I look, the more I find. I don’t think I’ll ever figure out what is quite going on here, and I think I’m okay with that.

  • 7:00 AM

Street, Berlin

Alex McDonald
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street, Berlin, 1913
Distortion, shadow play, and the focus on portraying raw emotion — German Expressionism embodied art’s use of these techniques in the early 1900s. But no one could foresee the odd series of events that would propel German Expressionism into the realm of modern cinema. Kirchner, his compatriots, and accolades triumphed over discrimination and persecution and brought new styles of expression into the art and film worlds.
Where one sees the most life, one can also feel the loneliest. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Street, Berlin illustrates (in an almost romantic way) how one can get lost in the city while being surrounded by people. Busy city folk encompass the man on the right, but he remains distinctly isolated in his space by the line running through his cane and back. Kirchner carved out a specific little space in Street, Berlin for the man to be alone. German Expressionists loved the idea of alienation and solitude (a reason why Kirchner would later move to Berlin, solely to get lost amongst the crowd, like the man in Street, Berlin). This depiction of loneliness in the city became the origins of the film noir.

Visually, German Expressionist paintings of the city could be snapshots from German film noirs or horror movies, besides the subject’s distorted forms. Both depict the darker side of city life and use shadows to illustrate people’s states of mind. One iconic example would be Fritz Lang’s 1931 film M. Peter Lorre’s character’s (a serial murder of children) shadow becomes a looming presence that bears down on the children he stalks. Another example would be F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922). In this, Max Schreck’s shadow engulfs the vampire’s victims just before he delivers his fatal kiss. But film noir became popular in Hollywood, U.S.A. around the 1940s. German Expressionism would have a larger impact at home before entering the U.S.

Kirchner belonged to a group called Die Brücke (German for The Bridge), which formed in Dresden around 1905. Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter (German for The Blue Rider) were the two schools of German Expressionism. Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky led Der Blaue Reiter in Berlin, while Kirchner and Emil Nolde dominated the Dresden art scene. Der Blaue Reiter had more abstraction and less scenes of city life in their art than Kirchner and his ilk’s. Marc’s works would more influential in works like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (a much more abstract film than M). But both groups would be labeled degenerate art by Germany’s new regime, the Third Reich.

The Nazi’s despised German Expressionism and devoted themselves to eradicating it from the German culture. They confiscated Expressionist works from museums and had all the Die Brückes and Der Blaue Reiters fired from teaching positions at the art academies. The oppression from the Nazi’s Reich would lead to Kirchner’s suicide in 1938. But before Kirchner killed himself, he burnt all of his paintings in his studio for fear that the Nazis would have that pleasure. With Hitler in control, many artists fled Germany such as Paul Klee (a member of Der Blaue Reiter) and Fritz Lang (a German Expressionist film maker). Fritz would go to Paris, and when that became occupied, the United States. Here, German Expressionism was viewed in Fritz’s films and helped influence American cinema. Even to this day, film critics claim Fritz Lang to be the godfather of modern cinema. And German Expressionism itself would again rise to power in the German media after the Nazi’s degenerate art show, which displayed numerous Expressionist works. The Nazis had intended for people to scoff at these paintings, but instead they fell in love with them, creating a cult following of the German Expressionists. After WWII, the German Expressionists would claim their place in art history.

  • 12:10 AM