Just a bit of Art

Really can't put any thought into words today, so let's try something with a bit of art.

Above is Potsdamer Platz by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Not sure if I remember all of the details, but I am going to tell them the way I remember them since that is how I like them best.

It's an expressionist painting. Love expressionism, always felt like impressionism was trying to develop a new technique for depicting reality to break away from the stiltedness of realism. Expressionism, was trying to come up with a way to depict emotions, both what was going on within people and the way places felt. Much more interesting I think.

Potsdamer Platz is a square in Berlin. A big center of commotion and nightlife before WWII it was bombed into oblivion and left a field until the late 90s when it was made into Berlin's equivalent of Time Square (granted on a smaller scale, but hey, it is Europe!).

In the early 1900s prostitutes gathered there wearing war widow's black veils to identify themselves. And that is what is going on here, with the would-be patrons encircling them. Still captures a lot of the night time feel the now prostitute-less Potsdamer Plotz today actually.

I suppose what I like about it is that it is trying to depict the moment without being bound by reality. Streets, limbs, and buildings are bent to provide all the desired angles. Really none of the characters seems to be sympathetic. The women seem to not even with their rigid stances, and the men look like emerging wolves.

I have a large print of it, but it didn't seem quit right for the kitchen.