Curved Railroad Tracks, Taunus (Bahnkurve Taunus), study for 1916 lithograph Landscape in Taunus (Landschaft im Taunus)
Ernst Kirchner
Description
Erich Heckel
Germany, 1883–1970
Landscape
1919
Graphite and ink on paper
Gift of the Ernst Pulgram and Frances McSparran Collection, 2007/2.101
Ernst Kirchner
Germany, 1880–1938
Curved Railroad Tracks, Taunus (Bahnkurve Taunus)
1915
Ink on artist board
Gift of the Ernst Pulgram and Frances McSparran Collection, 2007/2.103
While urban environments dominated much of Expressionism’s imagery, the provinces also played an important role in the art movement. Many urban-based Expressionists sought more affordable provincial living during their summers, while others sought time in rural areas for spiritual renewal. Erich Heckel spent many hours working en plein air—the traditional art practice of sketching outdoors—but transcribed what he saw into his own individual, free-flowing line.
The provinces also provided relief for strained nerves: following a breakdown in 1915, Kirchner spent the rest of his life in rural sanitariums or in his mountain home near Davos, Switzerland. Curved Railroad Tracks, Taunus, a study for a lithograph executed in 1916, was sketched during Kirchner’s 1915 sanitarium stay in the Taunus mountains of central Germany.
Subject Matter:
A freight train chugs through the Taunus mountain range, Germany.
Physical Description:
Train tracks curve from bottom center upward through center and off to the left; steaming locomotive pulling three freight cars past three storage sheds located in center of track loop. The background shows 3 mountain peaks, echoed in three clouds overhead. In the foreground, bottom corners are trees or other dense foliage. Artist's sketch from life; Kirchner developed a rapid, stroke-oriented (as opposed to detail-oriented) sketch style when out in the world.
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