The artist's brushstrokes were long and aggressive and the more detailed image below of Berlin Street Scene will help you to fully appreciate the style adopted by Kirchner. Kirchner's approach to portraiture was not concerned with precision or realism but emotion and energy - this approach has proven supremely popular but took time to be fully accepted by art academics and also the wider public in general. The main focus of this composition is two men and two women in the foreground - all are dressed smartly, with one of the women starting directly at a tall gentlemen whose facial portrait is provided in an unrealistic but expressive manner. The untrained eye would not be aware of this presence within the painting, but a broader knowledge of the artist and also his work over this period reveals a darker meaning to this piece. This would sometimes reveal the underbelly of society that others would not have been aware of, such as Berlin Street Scene which examines the role of prostitution at that time. Over the years of 1913-1915 Kirchner produced a series of paintings that focused on the social lives of the wealthy within Germany.
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