Bloated, one [=Kirchner himself] staggers off to work, where all work is in vain and the onslaught of mediocrity flattens everything. Like the cocott… - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

There is an intellectual guardianship over the world, it is man.. .This is the last judgement, before them you stand.. .They help you when you work. You can thank them only through work. When you want to die, they sometimes appear to you. When you are completely empty and completely open, you belong to them. [after his mental recovery]

The technical procedures doubtless release energies in the artist that remain unused in the much more lightweight processes of drawing or painting [referring to his printmaking].

The woodcut is the most graphic of the printmaking techniques. Its practice demands much technical ability and interest. Kirchner's technical skill made woodcutting easy for him. Thus he came in a spontaneous way through the simplification necessary here to a clear style of representation. We see in his woodcuts, which constantly accompanied his creative work, the formal language of the paintings prefigured.