Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Quotes about art

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker. Explore interesting quotes on art.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: 108   quotes 1   like

“I already realized [that time] that only a new study of nature and a new attitude towards life would bring the much-needed renewal of German art.”

looking back to his early art-student years in Munich [c. 1903/4], when he was standing before the artdeco paintings of Leo Putz and Fritz Erler
undated
Source: Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus, Anita Beloubek-Hammer, ed.; Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 2005, p. 26 (translation: Claire Louise Albiez https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272168564)

“to study the nude, the foundation of all pictorial art, in total freedom and naturalness. From.... this basis there emerged the feeling, shared by all, of taking creative stimulus from life itself and submitting to the decisive experience.”

Kirchner, in 'Chronik KG Brücke', 1913; a quoted by Wolf-Dieter Dube, Der Expressionismus in Wort und Bild (Genf and Stuttgart: Skira, Klett-Cotta, 1983), p. 34; as quoted in 'Portfolios', Alexander Dückers; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 68
1905 - 1915

“[the way of life of Die Brücke artists] though strange to the ordinary man, was not meant to shock, it was a pure and simple compulsion to integrate art and life..”

Quote in Expressionism, a German Intuition, 1905-1920: [Exhibition 1980-81]; Paul Vogt, Horts Keller, Martin Urban, Wolf-Dieter Dube, and Eberhard Roters; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1980, p. 7
undated

“[that all differences among the former Brücke members should be put in the past and that].. every individual conflict must be silenced and that everyone join together in the name of the whole, that is for our modern German art.”

In a letter to Hans Fehr, 1937; as quoted in Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus, Anita Beloubek-Hammer, ed.; Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 2005, p. 338 (transl. (transl. Claire Albiez)
When die Brücke was shown at the infamous 'Degenerate Art' show in Munich by the Nazi's in 1937, Kirchner wrote this to Hans Fehr
1930's

“.. art is made by man. His own figure is the center of all art... Therefore one must begin with the man himself.”

c. 1910; as quoted in: Der Blick auf Fränzi und Marcella: Zwei Modelle der Brücke-Künstler Heckel, Kirchner und Pechstein, Norbert Nobis; Sprengel Museum Hannover und Stiftung Moritzburg, 2011, p 17
1905 - 1915