Varietéparade
This conversation is connected to Varietéparade.
Kirchner painted Varietéparade (Variety Show) in 1908, early in Die Brücke's existence. Six performers in pink bodysuits pose on a stage — one doing a backbend over a white chair, others with arms raised — while a woman in a white dress watches from the left. A patterned carpet fills the foreground in deep blue, red, and gold. Berlin's variety shows and cabarets were a major subject for Kirchner and the other Brücke painters, who saw in the performers a kind of physical freedom that matched their artistic ambitions. The painting has the flat, bold quality of a poster, which is part of the point — Kirchner was interested in popular entertainment as a subject with the same seriousness as landscape or portraiture.