ProvenioArt Intelligence
Sign InExplore
weimar republicconcept:era modern

Street, Dresden

Oil on canvas (1908) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, depicting a crowded Dresden street with jagged, angular figures pressing against each other in claustrophobic proximity. A defining work of Die Brücke and German Expressionism.

Scholarly Significance

Kirchner's Street, Dresden anchors German Expressionism and its depiction of modern urban alienation; a key Entartete Kunst confiscated work now at MoMA.

Notes

  • ·Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painted Street, Dresden in 1908 as one of his first major Expressionist canvases.
  • ·The scene depicts Königs­brücker Strasse in Dresden: fashionably dressed women and passers-by crowd the pavement, rendered with angular distortion, clashing colours, and compressed space.
  • ·The coarse impasto and harsh palette reject Impressionist naturalism in favour of psychological intensity.
  • ·The work was confiscated by the Nazi regime in 1937 as 'degenerate art'; it was subsequently sold through Switzerland and acquired by MoMA in 1951.
  • ·The painting's diagonal lines, compressed figures, and electric tension became archetypal features of German Expressionist urban subject matter.