Only the artist who has a love and an aptitude for craftsmanship should make prints; only when the artist truly prints himself does the work earn the… - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

..the only certainty is that he [written by Kirchner himself] creates from the forms of the visible world, however close or far from them he desires to or must come.

[that] simple people brought their bodies and shared their scanty bread with the artists. Kirchner learned the course of life again in their houses.

After the war etching became Kirchner's favorite medium. He attributed this to its responsiveness. 'Etchings', he wrote, 'develop in the first states the most immediate hieroglyphs. Rich in lively handwriting and rich in variety of motifs, the etchings are like a diary of the painter.'