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(bouncy piano music)

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>> We're looking at a painting at the

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Museum of Modern Art by[br]Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

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It's Street Scene Dresden[br]and it dates to 1908.

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>>Kirchen is known as[br]an expressionist artist.

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That's his classification.

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>> He would become part of a group

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called Die Brucke.

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>> Yes, The Bridge.

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>> The Bridge, as they called themselves.

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>> What did the bridge mean?

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What was it a bridge to and from?

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>> From the past to the future.

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>> Well yes, from the past to the future,

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but it refers really[br]directly to Nietzsche.

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>> Really?

0:00:45.566,0:00:47.475
>> I didn't know that. I[br]didn't know that either,

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but it makes it much more interesting.

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>> Thus, speak Die Brucke.

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The bridge from civilization[br]to the Uberwanch,

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Crossing the bridge, it's a[br]journey of self-discovery,

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of individual self-actualization.

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>> There were so many German artists

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and craftsmen that were[br]really interested in

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Nietzsche at this moment, right?

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>> Obsessed is a better word.

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>> Yes, yes.

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>> What was it about Nietzsche?

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>> Well, he was interested in taking apart

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ideas of morality which[br]constricted culture so much,

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I think all over Europe[br]but especially in Germany.

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I think the young artists, I think Kirchen

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was not even 30 at this point,

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they're all pretty young,

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and they're really interested in renewal

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and the new.

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>> Germany was late coming to the

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Industrial Revolution, right?

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>> Yes.

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>> There's a lot of[br]change that's happening

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in a very compressed time period.

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>>They, in the later 19th Century, really

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tried to catch up to England and France

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and they worked really hard to do that.

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Then there was a lot[br]of growth really fast,

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but there are all these culture morays

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that they worked really[br]hard to break out of

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and Nietsche was totally[br]influential and inspirational

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because he posited all these[br]ways of breaking out of.

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>> It was very constrictive, proper.

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>> Accountable for..

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>> Yes, yes so that you wouldn't be

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proper and contained.

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>> Even in this painting,[br]there is a kind of isolation

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amongst those figures, isn't there?

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>> Definitely.

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>> Even though it's a[br]crowded, really dense scene;

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this is a pretty wild painting really.

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>> I have to say I know[br]that you like this painting.

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>> I do; I love this painting.

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>> I have always really not.

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>> I love this painting. (laughter)

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>> Right, so I want to[br]hear from both of you then.

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>> Why do you not like this painting?

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>> It feels very like[br]a man looking at women

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on the street and I know that they're...

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I don't know; I guess for me it doesn't

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build all that much more[br]on the 19th Century,

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on Munch's Street Scene[br]of Karl Johan Strasse.

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>> Right, from 1892.

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>> That kind of interest[br]in psychological angst

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and alienation in the modern world

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and using color to describe those things

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and brush work.

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This, as a symbolist[br]artist, I really like this.

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>> So did the Germans by the way.

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>> Yeah.

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>> They really heroized him, right?

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>> Then when I get to this and the colors

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become more garish and more difficult,

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the composition a little more disjointed,

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the brush work more open,

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I'm not sure how much this adds.

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I guess there's something[br]uncomfortable to me

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about the way that he's[br]looking at the women here.

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>> For me, the color[br]and garishness is what

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attracted me to it.

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I love the distortion.

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I love the green; I love the orange.

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I love the orange tracing[br]around the woman's hat.

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It's glowing.

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I just love looking at that.

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I feel like it's neon.

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If you look again at[br]the entire composition,

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I love things that kind of pop out

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at different moments.

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I think it is about[br]looking and it is about

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voyeurism and it is about the male gaze.

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If you look on the right[br]side of the painting,

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I love that he's caught halfway

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out of the composition.

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De'Gaulle did that in 1872.

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I think for me this[br]sort of feels very much

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about isolation and German angst.

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>> The point that you were[br]making about De'Gaulle

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I thought was an interesting one

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because in some ways

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France is going through those issues

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when De'Gaulle was painting and Germany is

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a little bit later, but[br]that doesn't make this

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not authentic,

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an authentic expression of that moment.

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I'm not saying that[br]they're the same thing,

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but the issue is industrial alienation and

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the issue of urban[br]alienation I think are both

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very important issues in

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both of those painter's work.

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This is clearly a 20th Century work.

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There are lessons that have learned and

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freedoms that have been generated from

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post-Impressionism and from other artists.

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>> I think of Fauvism.

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>> Exactly.

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>> Just the coloration I[br]think for me is something

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that makes it extremely[br]early 20th Century.

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>> It's not the beauty of Fauvism.

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>> No, it's not.

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>> This is really a kind of aggressive.

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>> I like that.

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>> So Van Gogh's Night[br]Cafe, he wanted to give

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the Night Cafe a sense[br]of darkness and misery

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by means of red and green.

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That's what Van Gogh said

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20 or 30 years before this.

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He's got that horrible pink[br]color in that painting.

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>> Maybe the power here is the very thing

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that you don't like which[br]is the women as subject.

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>> Well, I know that he's doing images of

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prostitutes on the street and I guess

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that knowing that informs

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my looking at this painting.

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It starts to make me really[br]worried about the way

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that modern historians[br]look at these images.

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>> I think that his, because[br]I think of his prostitute,

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the streetwalker scenes[br]as five years later.

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>> He's in Berlin, right?

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>> He's in Berlin and they're in like

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Potsdam or Platts and Friedrichshafen,

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those main city centers[br]and where the women...

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That's a lot more[br]strident and the women are

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definitely the focus of the male gaze.

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There are a lot of men kind of circling

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around the women.

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Those are less interesting to me.

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Also, I think just even[br]in terms of looking at

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the color and composition[br]for some reason and I

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know that a lot of people like those more.

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His style is more developed

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and he's more mature as an artist.

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I like that this is more raw.

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Kirchen, he's really[br]focusing on that authentic,

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kind of direct engagement with the

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experience of the city,

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the electric, the movement.

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>> A kind of constant[br]shift and change here

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as if all of those voids,[br]that wonderful pink area,

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is constantly changing and shifting as the

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figures that define that space move.

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>> I feel like he's[br]experimenting with something.

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>> Could we see the[br]women here as sympathetic

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in some way, maybe if I wasn't reading it

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through the guise of those later images of

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prostitutes on the street.

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She does look out at us.

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She's lit by the lights of the city.

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When you said neon, I[br]could sort of feel that,

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those kinds of lights maybe in the

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dusk in the city.

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She looks out at us.

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>> Well, they don't look to me honestly

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like prostitutes.

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>> Right, I'm saying[br]they're bourgeois women,

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but maybe there is something

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sympathetic about her[br]if we don't look at her

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through the lens of those later images.

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>> I think there is.

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I guess to me it just seems like

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these isolated figures and that's what

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attracts them to me.

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Like it's a theater; if[br]you look at the side,

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there's almost like a pillar figure,

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of that male figure,

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kind of holding the[br]picture together and it

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pulls your eye in and he's right there and

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he's sort of between you[br]and the female figures.

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Then everything kind[br]of recedes behind that

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diagonally to the left in the back.

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You see the girl in the center stage.

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>> What makes it theatrical?

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>> I think the lighting and the way the

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figures are arranged.

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>> That could almost be limelight

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coming from below.

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What I love about it[br]is, although it's a city

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and you have the slightest[br]trace of the trolley track,

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there's no architecture.

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The entire space is[br]defined by the occupation

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of these figures or their[br]occupation in space.

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In a sense, it's the city[br]defined by these people,

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defined by space itself shaped

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by this changing crowd[br]which I think is really

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an interesting idea.

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He's not using buildings.

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He's not even really using intersections.

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He's using people to define the space

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and then in a sense to build a city out of

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the people...

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>> Out of the shifting masses.

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This is Koenigstrasse in Dresden which is

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a main thoroughfare of[br]shopping so there's a lot of

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traffic and movement[br]and this is definitely

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part of a very well-known[br]street and a very

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well-known area and it's very populated.

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>> In the second half of the 19th Century

0:08:49.129,0:08:51.551
when artists' painted street[br]scenes, like De'Gaulle

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because this looks to[br]me like he's looking at

0:08:52.720,0:08:55.542
De'Gaulle, but there is more of a sense of

0:08:55.542,0:08:58.467
architecture and place.

0:08:58.467,0:08:59.963
>> Yes, there's nothing[br]here that's stable.

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Everything here will be[br]different in a moment

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and there's something sort[br]of wonderful about that.

0:09:04.500,0:09:07.594
>> Yeah. I think I like[br]also just looking at that

0:09:07.594,0:09:09.633
little girl and her big hat and her

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ugly, kind of claw-like hand.

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I think she's holding some kind of toy.

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>> Or flowers maybe.

0:09:15.195,0:09:16.278
>> Or flowers or something,

0:09:16.278,0:09:20.501
but in the painting it really looks scary.

0:09:20.501,0:09:23.548
>> Yes, yes. There's also[br]the way that her legs

0:09:23.548,0:09:25.555
are slightly splayed and there's something

0:09:25.555,0:09:27.055
very ungainly.

0:09:27.055,0:09:28.139
>> Her hair is kind of[br]dripping down the sides

0:09:28.139,0:09:29.553
of her face.

0:09:29.553,0:09:31.073
>> Yes, that kind of inelegant.

0:09:31.073,0:09:32.972
Actually throughout the entire painting,

0:09:32.972,0:09:35.434
there's this really[br]interesting tension between

0:09:35.434,0:09:38.886
the effort and elegance in the dress

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but then the ungainliness[br]or the aggression of

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the representation.

0:09:43.507,0:09:45.465
This is sort of wonderful[br]sort of back and forth.

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(bouncy piano music)