Pillow cover, (untitled),

1922–1924

On his pillow cover Tanz (Dance), which dates from the early 1920s, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner depicted four female artistes in a variety show flinging their muscular limbs around as chatting spectators look on. The focus is squarely on the central figures. The movements of the dancers, who are performing various stages of the choreography, are echoed by the flurry of activity among the guests in the audience to create a scintillating scene full of life. Kirchner skillfully captures the cinematic simultaneity of various impressions, heightening it further with an Expressionist color scheme. He had long been studying dance as a motif as well as dancing figures—both male and female—and depicted their physicality in various media. After moving to the mountains near Davos in 1917, the erstwhile city-dweller sought new inspiration in the mountain world and alpine customs, and the visionary painter of Berlin street scenes and characters from the demimonde became a landscape painter. But he apparently still stole away from his isolated mountain aerie from time to time to drink in the urban milieu again—the pillow with the dance scene offers proof. Elsa Bosshart-Forrer, a resident of Davos, executed it for Kirchner—along with other textile works—in a congenial manner in dense petit point embroidery and hallucinogenic colors. (Sabine Flaschberger)