About the Artwork
On the morning of January 20, 1919, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner witnessed a natural phenomenon of unusually colored moonlight over the Swiss Alps, which he immediately wanted to capture on canvas. This work, painted by the artist from memory, oscillates between the topographical reality of the landscape and the fantastical color palette of orange clouds over red sky, the blue, turquoise, and lilac shades of the snow, and the pink trees. The characteristically flat-topped Tinzenhorn mountain seen in the distance is the focal point of the composition, where nature reigns and only a few houses blanketed by snow hint at the human presence.
Kirchner moved to Switzerland in 1917 to recuperate from a nervous breakdown. In the year he made this painting, Germany, defeated in World War I and torn by a revolutionary violence, was on the brink of social and political collapse. The artist acknowledged that he painted the Alpine landscapes with his “nerves and blood,” seemingly unable to entirely remove himself from the modern world.
Winter Landscape in Moonlight
1919
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
1880 - 1938
German
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 47 1/2 × 47 1/2 inches (120.7 × 120.7 cm) Framed: 50 1/2 × 50 × 2 5/8 inches (128.3 × 127 × 6.7 cm)
Paintings
European Modern Art to 1970
Gift of Curt Valentin in memory of the artist on the occasion of Dr. William R. Valentiner's 60th birthday
40.58
Public Domain
Markings
Signed, lower right: E. L. Kirchner
Provenance
1923-August 7, 1937, Kaiser-Friedrich Museum (Magdeburg, Germany);August 7, 1937-August 12, 1939, confiscated by the German Reich (Deutsches Reich)/The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda), Berlin, Germany as “degenerate art ["Entartete Kunst," no. 16114];
August 12, 1939, purchased by (Buch- und Kunsthandlung Karl Buchholz, Berlin, Germany);
by 1940, transferred to (Curt Valentin, Buchholz Gallery, New York, New York, USA);
1940-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Exh. cat., Golden Gate International Exposition. San Francisco, 1940, pp. 84, 90, no. 665 (ill.).
Themes and Variations in Painting. Exh. cat., Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore, 1948, pp. 47, 68, no. 110.
E.L. Kirchner, German Expressionst. Exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art. Raleigh, 1958, p. 87, no. 26 (ill.).
Grohmann, E. L. Kirchner. Stuttgart, 1958, p. 73.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Exh. cat., Kunstverein fur die Rheinlande und Westfalen. Dusseldorf, 1960, no. 68.
Gordon, D.E. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Exh. cat., Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Cambridge, 1968, p. 347, no. 558 (pl. 19).
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Exh. cat., Seattle Art Museum. Seattle, 1968, p. 81, no. 49 (pl. 27).
European Expressionism. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. Paris, 1970, no. 101.
DIA Illustrated Handbook. Detroit, 1971, p. 171.
Dube, Wolf-Dieter. Expressionists. New York, 1972, p. 52 (fig. 30).
Miesel, Victor. Kirchner's Wintermondlandschaft. Wurzburg, 1978, pp. 207-216 (ill.).
Uhr, H. Masterpieces of German Expressionism at the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1982, pp. 102-103 (ill.).
Dube, Wolf-Dieter. Expressionists and Expressionism. Geneva, 1983, p. 117 (ill.).
Winter. Exh. cat., Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. Hanover, New Hampshire, 1986, p. 103 (ill.).
100 Masterworkds from the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1985, pp. 218-219 (ill.).
Miesel, Victor. "Alpine Imagery and Kirchner's 'Winter Landscape in Moonlight.'" The Bulletin of the DIA 66, 4 (1991): pp. 4-17 (ill.).
Grisebach, Lucius. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1880-1938. Cologne, 1995, p. 167 (ill.).
Augustin, Birgitta. "'Like stars seen on the bottom of deep wells': Recalling a Shakyamuni in Detroit," Orientations. vol. 52, no. 1 (January/February 2021): pp. 74-76, (fig. 2) p. 76.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Winter Landscape in Moonlight, 1919, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Curt Valentin in memory of the artist on the occasion of Dr. William R. Valentiner's 60th birthday, 40.58.
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