Lot 236 Dα

Kirchner's sheet “Grasende Ziegen” bursts with colour and depicts the goats on a steep slope with the flowing water of a spring-fed trough above them: its blue is taken up again in the bold outlines of the animals, in the landscape and in the figure of the peasant in the background. This is complemented by the contrast between the extremely diverse shades of green in the vegetation and the reddish brown of the animals' bodies and the wood. Above all, it is Kirchner's specific graphic style which brings the entire composition to life in distinct - sometimes isolated - and autonomous lines: through them the motif, largely dominated by a diagonal, is completely filled with rhythm.
Kirchner lived above Davos in the summers of 1917 and 1918, initially in deliberate solitude in a hut in the Stafelalp pasture and then at the “Haus in den Lärchen”, which he began renting in September of 1918. “Kirchner artistically assimilated the landscape that surrounded him. From the very beginning, he was fascinated by the monumental quality of the mountains and the life of the farmers, which was still unfamiliar to him. […] Precisely this artistic reflection on the new circumstances of his life was of immense importance for Kirchner's self-concept. His photographic recording of the new landscape, the various residential studios which he decorated with art and his spontaneous encounters with neighbouring farmers were also just as important for Kirchner as a source of artistic inspiration as the earlier studio photographs of dancing companions and models in Dresden and Berlin.” (Beate Ritter, Bergwelten. Kirchners erste Jahre in Davos, in: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Retrospektive, exhib. cat. Städel Museum, Frankfurt 2010, p. 175).