THE COYER

摘要

The city is Dresden, the street its fashionable Koenigstrasse, the artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938). It is 1908 and the heady new century is in its youth. Still, dark clouds are already forming on the horizon, casting long shadows over the future. While there may have been gaiety, even exuberance, it is only on the surface. Beneath it lies angst, desperation, uncertainty, alienation. Kirchner was the leader of a small group of German artists whose aim was to translate the agitation of this modem urban world to the canvas. Their work is marked by mordant, harsh colors, distorted forms, and unconventional perspective in a flattened, shallow space. Kirchner's Street, Dresden (cover) epitomizes the style and the period.