Max Pechstein

“Soon [after visiting Italy and studying the early 'primitive' Renaissance painters] Pechstein, like Gauguin before him, felt the urgency to go further in the search for the primitive beginnings of men, art and life. He expected to find an equivalent to his own vital energy and sensual impulses among native tribes. After long plans he sailed early in 1914 from Genoa.. ..to the island of w:Palau, at that time a German colony east of the Philippines.”

“[Pechstein was often dissatisfied with his prints, because] ..instinctively he already feels transposition into line, into black and white, somehow as abstraction and as an intermediate position.. .Fundamentally, so to speak, he perceives the symbolic colorfulness in the black and white of the plane as a preliminary phase; like a text for which the music is still missing.”

“[Prints] not only show the change and transformation of [Pechstein's] artistic goals but are also both the mirror and chronicle of his external life. They report on his journeys and trips, on life in the cities and in nature; they exhibit life s surroundings.”

“I would like to express my longing for happy experiences. I do not want us to be for ever regretting. Art has been and remains the part of my life that brings me happiness.”

“..the unrelenting Berlin forced each one of us to struggle through on the most individual paths, so that our communal living [of 'Brücke', in 1913] fell apart. In addition, the knowledge of the individual members had developed so far that the individual form differed, although the overall goal of the group remained the same.”

“It was and still is fundamental: to begin the work with the same tools with which it will be ended, without making a preliminary drawing. on the wood, stone, or metal. Sketches and drawings done in advance clarify the intention, and with it ready in the head, the requisite tool realizes the idea.”

“What a variety of shapes exists in the lithograph when one prepares the stone for printing, etches it, and prints oneself. Above all, one must do the printing oneself!”

“In 1907 I was most strongly influenced by Giotto during my first Italian trip, as well as by Etruscan sculpture and the early Etruscan landscape painting in the Vatican library in Rome.”

“Contented sleep releases the limbs. We await full moon. Await the dance!”

“Man, air, trees, world are laid bare and are one!”

“It is the sure certainty of having found unity with nature, this calm causes one of the strongest experiences.”

“A new day. Calm as seldom the beginning of such a one. Did I dream? No! Dream and contented pure was the night..”

“We desire to achieve to the socialist republic not only the recovery of the conditions of art, but also the beginning of a unified artistic area for our time.”

“Now I drew as wildly during my tramps [during his walks through the Saxonian countryside] as I has fought before. [in his early youth]”

“We [the artists of Die Brücke ] were overjoyed to discover our complete unison in the urge for liberation, for an art surging forward, unrestricted by convention.”

“I was commissioned [in 1906] to do a ceiling-painting and an altar painting for the Saxon pavilion at the third German Arts and Crafts exhibition.. .I varied my tulips. But when I went in before the opening I was horrified to see that the fiery red had been toned down with streaks of grey.. .I gave furious vent to my feelings. Suddenly there was someone at my side, seconding my vituperation. It was Erich Heckel.. ..joyfully we discovered our total accord in the drive towards liberation, an art which charged forwards, unimpeded by conventions. And that was how I joined Die Brücke.”