Modern Bohemia

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

1924

Oil on canvas

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A nude woman reclines on a patterned rug in a room with several figures and a bouquet of yellow flowers. The scene is rendered in bold colors and expressive brushstrokes. A nude woman reclines on a patterned rug in a room with several figures and a bouquet of yellow flowers. The scene is rendered in bold colors and expressive brushstrokes. In 1906, Kirchner co-founded the Dresden expressionist group known as Die Brücke (The Bridge), an avant-garde movement that investigated the realities and fantasies of a life lived with freedom, intensity, and eroticism. Modern and non-western arts were the means of their exploration—with study of the nude at the center of their practice. Kirchner brings all these elements together in Modern Bohemia —a depiction of his lodgings in Switzerland—to express the ideal c