Kirchner was a twentieth-century artist who looked at non-Euopean art with both an aesthetic eye and a spiritual eye. He endeavored to redo it in European style, particularly the are of the Polynesian.

KIRCHNER'S THOUGHTS ON ART

"Years went by as I continued my studio study, mostly drawings on the streets, in the city squares, and in cafes. I attempted to translate these drawings into pictures. Technically, I first used thick oil colors, then in order to cover larger surfaces I applied the colors more thinly with a painting knife, and then I used benzine (my secret for the mat finish) with a wax additive. Every day I studied the nude, and movement in the streets and in the of the naturalistic surface with all its variations I wanted to derive the pictorially determined surface. This is why I rejected academically correct drawing. Old masters like Cranach and Beham supported me in this effort. When the simple two-dimensional surface was purified I began shading the surface in order to enrich the composition, first with black and white, nowadays with other colors. At the same time I gained a deeper understanding of human psychology by getting to know my subjects better as human beings. I never had real models in the academic sense. Of course, you have quite a bit of private information about all this. Then, with insight into the limits of human interaction, I undertook the withdrawal of the self from itself and its dissolution within the other person's psyche for the sake of a more intense expression. The less I was physically involved, something which quickly occurred as a result of my mood, the more easily and completely I entered into and depicted my subject. My technique kept pace with this inner development until my induction into the army made me afraid of people and revealed new things to me in landscape. [19161

What you write about art, and creation in general, is easy for me to under-stand. I also understand what you mean about the artist and philosopher creating their own world. Actually, such a world is only a means of making contact with others in the great mystery which surrounds all of us. Thisgreat mystery which stands behind all events and things (sometimes like a phantom) can be seen or felt when we talk to a person or stand in a landscape or when flowers or objects suddenly speak to us. We can never represent it directly, we can only symbolize it in forms and words. Think of it, a persons its across from us and we talk, and suddenly there arises this intangible something which one could call mystery. It gives to his features his innate personality and yet at the same time it lifts those features beyond the personal. If I am able to join him in such a moment, I almost call it ecstasy,I can paint his portrait. And yet this portrait, as close as it is to his real self, is a paraphrase of the great mystery and, in the last analysis, it does not represent a single personality but a part of that spirituality or feeling which pervades the whole world.
I don't know whether I can express myself intelligibly. I can only give you an example of what I understand by passivity. It is the ability of so losing one's own individuality that one can make this contact with others. It takes immense effort to achieve this, yet it is achieved without willing it, to some extent unconsciously without one's having to do with it. To create at this stage with whatever means-words or colors or notes-is art." [1917]

INTRODUCTION     WHAT ART IS    SPIRIT OF ART    REFLECTIONS BY ARTISTS    MY WORKS OF ART