Mountain with Cattle

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1918

Download free · 4000 × 3194px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (German, 1880–1938)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 46 3/4 × 58 3/4 in. (118.7 × 149.2 cm) (sight)
Museum: Minneapolis Institute of Art
Rights: Public Domain Mark

German painter Ernst Kirchner presents a tranquil bird’s-eye view of a herd of cattle grazing in the majestic Swiss Alps. The forms in the landscape are abstracted: the cows, farmer, mountaineer, hilly green terrain, flowing stream, purple and pink mountain peaks, and spiky trees. Kirchner painted the colorful scene soon after emigrating to Switzerland from Germany. He had sought medical treatment there after suffering a mental crisis and physical collapse while serving as an artillery driver in World War I and had developed an addiction to narcotics.

The grand, vibrant scene seems to encapsulate the artist’s experience of nature in Switzerland at this sensitive moment of his recovery. Kirchner wrote in 1918, “Down below in the valley the cabins stand out in the boldest Paris blue against the yellow fields. For the first time here one really gets to know the worth of individual colors. And, in the bargain, the stark monumentality of the rows of mountains.”

Text: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), CC BY 4.0.