..the feeling that pervades a city presented itself in the qualities of lines of force. - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Every day I studied the nude, and movement in the streets and in the shops [in Berlin]. Out of the naturalistic surface with all its variations I wanted to derive the pictorially determined surface.

It would be nice if you wouldn't call me an expressionist. I'm really not one.

Now I'm sitting quietly at home again and I'm happy to be able to work undisturbed. I made a lot of sketches of life in Germany and it was very intriguing to see life there [in Berlin, a stay for three weeks]. I was also glad to see the old pictures of Rembrandt, Dürer, etc. again and to have the confirmation and encouragement they gave me. As for the moderns, I saw damned little that gripped me.. .Modern German painting has moved so far away from me and become unintelligible in areas in which my work had, and still has, an influence; but people like Klee, Kandinsky, etc. have moved much closer to me again, in fact I value the Bauhaus more and more. These people are working and developing. You can see that there is development. And they love their work, which is the main thing.