It seems as though the goal of my work has always been to dissolve myself completely into the sensations of the surroundings in order to then integra… - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Is such a street scene as the blue prostitutes not a picture of fantasy? Of course, only the accusation is really present. But how nice, how powerful, and how removed from nature is the design. The danger of being caught up in the representational did not exist for Kirchner [he is writing about himself, in the third person]. Instead he thought too painterly for that. The graphics and paintings of the 'Streetscenes' show best where purely painterly, one could say non-representational, feelings converged.

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

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