The technical procedures doubtless release energies in the artist that remain unused in the much more lightweight processes of drawing or painting [r… - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

I already realized [that time] that only a new study of nature and a new attitude towards life would bring the much-needed renewal of German art.

Many thanks for your letter and the Gauguin woodcuts.. .One can see, incidentally, that Gauguin had Persian miniatures, Indian batik and Chinese art in his very blood. The shapes of the birds and the horse show that clearly. But although it looks very well, Gauguin can't stimulate us present-day artists much. We need a direct route from life to plastic form. And we get it by perpetually drawing everything we see.

I am very happy and thankful to be 'here' [Switzerland] and to remain. Here I can at least work a little on my good days, and be at peace among these simple, kindly people. In this solitude I have fought my way through to the possibility of continuing to live, even suffering so much. My time for circuses, '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.. .I cannot go down again into the throng. I am more than ever afraid of crowds. But more still, my work here is only at the beginning of its possibilities.