Archery

Archers is an oil on canvas painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, made between 1935 and 1937 in Davos, the Swiss town where he lived. It belongs to his late phase, when he moved away from the Expressionism of his earlier years. Three figures, a woman in the foreground and two men, are absorbed in archery, their eyes fixed on the target. Their stances form a strong diagonal running from the lower left to the target at the upper right, which acts as the vanishing point of the perspective. The figures no longer have volume and appear flat, while the shadows, in brownish tones, hover over the bodies as independent fields of colour. The archer motif recalls the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, although it cannot be claimed that Kirchner intended that reference. In a letter to his patron Carl Hagemann, the artist singled out these large shadows, which he felt gave the work calm and monumentality.

Painter

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Date

1935

Dimensions

195 × 150 cm

Museum

Kirchner Museum Davos, Davos

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