Kunsthaus Zürich

Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism—these are still the most important stylistic labels which acted as slogans for French painting during the 19th century. At that time, Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, and many others left the "straight and narrow" of painting, the academic-neo-classical manner. Highly controversial at the time, today these painters are celebrated worldwide as precursors of Modernism. The situation is very different...

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's move from Dresden to Berlin in 1911 marked a turning point in his art. Under the influence of the most modern metropolis in Europe, during the years between 1912 and 1915, the artist created works whose exaggerated and condensed style could be regarded as a true metaphor for the attitude to life during the early years of...