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During the Christmas holiday, we visited Cologne (Köln) with Tiffani to see the famous Cologne cathedral and also the Wallraf-Richartz/Ludwig Museum visited primarily the modern art sections to see the German Expressionists and Russian Constructionist. We saw many paintings by Kirchner including his group portrait of the Die Bruecke artists. It is much better to see actual paintings of the German Expressionist than a slide of the same painting because the colors are much more vivid in the actual painting. It is difficult to reproduce the shades of deep blue and purple in slide reproductions. Along with the saturated pink tones, Kirchner used tones of bluish purples and red-saturated blues. I never understood why Kirchner chose some of the odd color combinations, until I saw the actual painting. Sometimes he choose a pinkish hue to emphasize the outline of a row of trees along a horizon line or to emphasize the floor for the group portrait. The color combinations seemed out of place in the slide reproduction but in the actual painting, it was the perfect hue. He used the unusual colors to emphasize the emotional impact of the scene or the relationship between the artists
We saw many other artists such as Picasso, Hans Arp and Russian Constructionist painters. Erika enjoyed looking at the sculptures especially Hans Arp and Brancusi. The Hans Arp pieces were smooth undulating stone shapes and the Brancusi pieces were highly polished and reflective bronze pieces. The museum had one of Brancusi's soaring vertical "bird" motifs installed in the middle of an exhibition room. Erika enjoyed walking around the Brancusi piece and watching how her reflection changed.
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