Head of van de Velde, bright. – Van de Velde among Mountains
1917
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner carved this intense portrait of Belgian architect Henry van de Velde during his Swiss exile in 1917. The jagged, angular lines of the woodcut perfectly capture the underlying anxiety of the World War I era, placing the subject's gaunt, wide-eyed face against a backdrop of sharp, looming Alpine peaks. As a founding member of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke, Kirchner used this rough-hewn technique to strip away polite realism and expose raw, emotional truth, turning a simple mountain retreat into a psychological landscape.
- Technique
- Woodcut
Views: 3