Ernst Ludwig Kirchner on Die Brücke

“The struggle for existence is very difficult here [Berlin], but the possibilities are also greater. I hope that we can create a fruitful new school and convince many new friends of the value of our efforts.”

“Life is unfixed when one lives in Berlin, where one has to fight for a living. It is painfully base here. I see that a fine, free culture cannot be created under these circumstances and wish to leave as soon as I have overcome this big slump.”

“With faith in evolution, in a new generation of creators and connoisseurs, we call together all youth. And as youths, who embody the future, we want to free our lives and limbs from the long-established older powers. Anyone who renders his creative drive directly and genuinely is one of us.”

“My time for circuses, and 'cocottes' and company is over [referring to his wild 'Brücke'-years in Berlin]. I made what I could out of it, and I do not think it had been done in that way before. Otherwise there is nothing to link me with those 'événements'. During my 7 years in Berlin I let the whole essence of that kind of thing seep into me so thoroughly that I now know it back to front, and can leave it. Now I have other tasks, and they lie here {Switzerland].. .I can not go down again into the throng. I am more than ever afraid of crowds.”

“A happy coincidence brought together [in 'Die Brücke'] the really talented men whose characters and gifts, even in human terms, left them with no other choice than the profession of artist. This form of living, of dwelling and working, though peculiar for a regular human being, was not a deliberate 'epater le bourgeois', but simply a very naive and pure necessity to harmonize art and life. And it was precisely this more than anything else that so tremendously influenced the forms of present-day art. Of course, it was mostly misunderstood and totally distorted, for there [the will] fashioned the form and gave it meaning, whereas here the unfamiliar form is affixed to habit, like a top hat on a cow.”