Focus on this artwork and explore the Die Brücke and personal struggles.
Kirchner had been a founding member of the German Expressionist painting group Die Brücke. The artists banded together in 1905 in Dresden and with the goal of promoting an avant-garde artistic style and saw themselves as an avant-garde group that bridged the gap between the classical past and their perception of art of the future.: 85  Die Brücke developed "a common style characterized by compositions of flat areas of unbroken colour, a radical simplification of form, and the use of glowing, unmixed colours applied with fluidity." The group sought to apply this stylistic approach to painting, printmaking, and architecture, though Kirchner focused almost solely on painting. Kirchner claimed to have artistic independence in the style of his work, but influence from earlier avant-garde movements is visible. The choice of bright and unnaturalistic colors resembles the work of Matisse during his Fauve period, which he also painted a number of figures like Kirchner does. Matisse was known throughout his career for painting female figures, a trend that Kirchner also adopts in his own work. Along with other members of the group, Kirchner moved to Berlin from Dresden in 1911. The move to Berlin proved to be troublesome for the group and rifts began to form. In 1913, several months before Kirchner painted Street, Berlin, the group formally dissolved due to artistic differences and disagreements about the direction of the group. Kirchner held a grandiose attitude to his own artwork and his attitudes toward showing outside the group context were major factors in the group's dissolution.
Dresden Berlin Matisse Die Brücke Fauve avant-garde